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HISTORY 



TRANSMISSION OF ANCIENT BOOKS 



MODERN TIMES; 

OR, 

A CONCISE ACCOUNT OF THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GENUINENESS 

AND AUTHENTICITY OF 

ANCIENT HISTORICAL WORKS ARE ASCERTAINED : 

WITH AN 

ESTIMATE OF THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF THE EVIDENCE USUALLY 

ADDUCED IN SUPPORT OF THE 

CLAIMS OF THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES. 



BY ISAAC TAYLOR. 



/"v / 






LONDON: 
PRINTED FOR B. J. HOLDSWORTH, 

18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. 
1827. 



I THE LIBRARY 
|0 FC0NGRESS1; 

IWASH^TONji 

LONDON : 

,. T. H1NTON, WARWICK SQBABK. 



ADVERTISEMENT, 



The credit of literature, the certainty of 
history, and the truth of religion, are all in- 
volved in the secure transmission of ancient 
books to modern times. Many of the facts 
connected with the history of this transmission 
are to be found, more or less distinctly men- 
tioned, in every work in which the claims of 
the Holy Scriptures are advocated. But these 
facts are open to much misapprehension when 
brought together to subserve the purposes of 
a single argument. It is the specific design 
of this volume therefore to lay them before 
general readers apart from controversy, and 
as if no interests more important than those 
of literature were implicated in the result of 
the statements we have to make. 

Nothing can be more equitable than that 
the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish 
and Christian Scriptures should be judged of 
by the rules that are applied to other ancient 
books. And nothing is more likely to produce 



-? 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

a firm and intelligent conviction of the vali- 
dity of the claims advanced by the Holy Scrip- 
tures, than clearly to understand the relative 
value of the evidence which supports them. 
To furnish the means therefore of instituting a 
comparison so just in itself and so necessary 
to a fair examination of the most important of 
all questions, is the design of the following 
pages. 

As this volume makes no. pretension to 
communicate information to those who are 
already conversant with matters of antiquity, 
literary or historical, whatever might seem 
recondite, or whatever is still involved in con- 
troversy, has been avoided. Nor has the au- 
thor loaded his pages with numerous refer- 
ences, which, though easily amassed, would 
increase the size of the volume without being 
serviceable to the class of readers for whom 
he writes. No facts, he believes, are adduced 
which may not readily be substantiated by 
any one who has access to a library of mo- 
derate extent. To a few works not often met 
with in private collections, the author has ex- 
plicitly acknowledged his obligations. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introduction 1 

Chap. I. Antiquity and genuineness of 

THE EXISTING REMAINS OF ANCIENT LITER- 
ATURE. — Proof derived from the history of 
Manuscripts — from quotations and references — 
from the history of Language 9 

Chap. II. Facts illustrative of the history 
of manuscripts. — Materials of ancient books 
— instruments of writing — inks — changes in the 
modes of writing — form of ancient books — illumi- 
nations, &c— the copyists— places most celebrated 
for the transcription of books 43 

Chap. III. Indications of the existence of 
ancient literature from the decline 
of learning in the seventh century, to 
its restoration in the fifteenth. — Cele- 
, brated writers of the middle ages, whose works 
being extant, give evidence of their acquaintance 
with ancient literature .86 

Chap. IV. Methods of ascertaining the 
credibility of historical works. — Moral 
and intellectual qualifications of historians — 
means of information they possessed — time and 



VI CONTENTS. 

circumstances of the first publication of their 
works — exceptions to their testimony on parti- 
cular points 110 

Chap. V. Confirmations of the evidence of 

HISTORIANS DERIVED FROM INDEPENDENT 

sources. — Remains of general literature — geo- 
graphical facts — permanent customs of nations — 

monuments of art 144 

Chap. VI. General principles, applicable 

TO QUESTIONS OF GENUINENESS AND AU- 
THENTICITY 176 

Chap. VII. Relative strength of the evi- 
dence WHICH SUPPORTS THE GENUINENESS 
AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE HOLY SCRIP- 
TURES 197 

Appendix. 

1. Specimen of various readings 241 

2. Restorers of learning in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries 247 

3. The Jesuit Hardouin 25 



5 > 



INTRODUCTION. 



No one thinks of calling in question the 
principal facts of ancient history, or of disput- 
ing the authenticity of the works from which 
chiefly our knowledge of antiquity is derived. 
This confidence in the certainty of history is so 
firm, and is known to be in general so well 
^founded, that it might seem unnecessary to 
adduce in form the various evidence on which 
it actually rests. 

But on this subject, as well as upon some 
others, there often exists at the same time too 
much faith, and too little ; for, from a want of 
acquaintance with the details on which a ra- 
tional conviction of the genuineness and validity 
of ancient records may be founded, many per- 
sons, even though otherwise well informed, feel 
that they have hardly an alternative between a 
simple acceptance of the entire mass of ancient 
history, or an equally indiscriminate suspicion 



2 



INTRODUCTION'. 



of the whole. And when it happens that a par- 
ticular fact is questioned, or the genuineness of 
some ancient book is argued, such persons, con- 
scious that they are little familiar with the 
particulars of which the evidence on these sub- 
jects consists, and perceiving that the contro- 
versy involves a multiplicity of recondite and 
uninteresting researches ; or that it turns upon 
the validity of minute criticisms, either recoil 
altogether from the argument, or accept an 
opinion, without inquiry, from that party on 
whose judgement they think they may most 
safely rely. 

And certainly such controversies may, for the 
most part, very properly be left in the hands 
of critics and antiquarians, whose peculiar 
tastes and acquirements qualify them for inves- 
tigations that must be utterly uninteresting to 
the mass of readers. Nor are the facts to which 
these controversies relate often of any import- 
ance to the general student of history; for they 
do not extensively affect the integrity of that 
department of literature to which they belong. 
But yet it must be allowed that the principles on 
which such questions are argued, and the com- 
mon facts that are connected with the transmis- 
sion of ancient literature to modern times, are 
in themselves highly important, and well de- 
serving of more attention than they often 
receive. Nor are these facts, when separated 



INTRODUCTION. tf 

from particular controversies, at all compli- 
cated, abstruse, or difficult of apprehension. 
Indeed much of the information that bears 
upon the subject is in itself highly curious and 
interesting, as well as important. 

Even in relation to those works of genius 
whose value consists in their intrinsic merits, 
and which would not be robbed of their beau- 
ties though discovered to be spurious, an 
assurance of their genuineness is felt by every 
reader to conduce greatly to the pleasure they 
impart. But a much stronger feeling natu- 
rally leads us to demand this assurance in 
the perusal of works which profess to have 
reality only for their matter. — Truth is the 
very subject of History. — Satisfactory evi- 
dence, therefore, of the integrity of its records 
may well be deemed an indispensable prelimi- 
nary to a course of study in that department 
of knowledge. 

Besides its peculiar propriety in connection 
with the study of history, the argument in sup- 
port of the genuineness and authenticity of the 
existing remains of ancient literature is singu- 
larly fitted to afford a useful exercise to the 
reasoning faculties ; and perhaps, better than 
any other subject, calls into combined action 
those powers of the mind that are too much 
separated by mathematical, physical, or legal 
pursuits, and which in the actual occasions of 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

common life can subserve our welfare only so 
far as they move in unison. 

But reasons of still greater moment recom- 
mend the subject of the following pages to the 
attention of the reader ; for every one, whether 
or not he is contented to admit without inquiry 
the authenticity of profane history, has the high- 
est personal concern in the truth of that parti- 
cular portion of ancient history with which the 
Christian religion is connected ; and every one 
is bound to acquire a full conviction of the 
genuineness of the books in which its principles 
are contained. And as the facts on which this 
proof depends are of the same kind in profane, 
as well as in sacred literature, and as the same 
principles of evidence are applicable to all 
questions relating to the genuineness of ancient 
books, it is highly desirable that the proof of 
the genuineness of the Sacred Writings should 
be viewed in its place, as forming a part only 
of a general argument, which bears equally 
upon all the literary remains of antiquity. For 
it is only when so viewed that the comparative 
strength and completeness of the proof that 
belongs to this particular case can be duly es- 
timated ; and when exhibited in this light it 
will be seen that the integrity of the records of 
the Christian faith is substantiated by evidence 
in a tenfold proportion more various, copious, 
and conclusive, than that which can be adduced 



INTRODUCTION. O 

in support of any other ancient writings. So 
that if the question had no other importance 
belonging to it than what may attach to a 
purely literary inquiry, or if only the strict 
justice of the case were regarded, the authen- 
ticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures 
would never be controverted till the entire 
body of classical literature had been proved to 
be spurious. 

Many, perhaps most persons, in perusing 
works on the evidences of revealed religion, are 
apt to suppose that the sacred books only, or 
that these books more than any others, stand 
in need of laboured argumentation in support 
of their authenticity : while, in truth, these 
books, far less than any other ancient writings, 
need a careful investigation of their claims ; 
for the proof that establishes them is on all 
points obvious and redundant. Indeed this 
very redundancy and variety of evidence, espe- 
cially if it happens to be unskilfully adduced, 
may actually produce confusion and hesitancy, 
rather than affirmed conviction in unpractised 
minds. And this perplexity is perhaps in- 
creased by the very idea of the vast importance 
of the subject. Thus it may often happen that 
those very facts which, if compared with others 
of a similar kind, are susceptible of the most 
complete proof, are actually regarded with the 
most distrust. 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

The subject of the following pages consti- 
tutes what may be termed — the History of the 
Records of History ; and our object is to trace 
the extant works of the ancient historians re- 
trogressively, from modern times, up to the age 
to which they are usually attributed; and then 
to explain the grounds on which, under certain 
limitations, the contents of these works are 
admitted to be authentic and worthy of credit. 
This inquiry therefore consists of two perfectly 
distinct parts, of which the Jimt relates to the 
antiquity, genuineness, and integrity of certain 
books, now extant ; and the proposition to be 
established is this, namely, that such and such 
books were written in the age to which they 
are usually assigned, and by the authors to 
whom they are commonly attributed, and that 
they have not suffered material corruption in 
the course of transcription. 

The second part of the inquiry relates to the 
degree of credit that is due to such of these 
ancient works as profess to be narratives of 
facts ; and the proposition to be maintained is 
this, namely, that such or such an author 
wrote what he believed to be true, and that he 
possessed authentic information on the subject 
of which he treats. The proof in this case must 
be drawn from the style and character of the 
work itself; from the circumstances that at- 
tended its first publication ; from the corro- 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

borative evidence of contemporary writers ; 
and from the agreement of the narrative in 
particular instances with existing relics of an- 
tiquity. 

Satisfactory evidence in support of the first 
proposition will prove that the works in 
question are not forgeries: — evidence esta- 
blishing the second, will show that they are 
not fictions, 

It is obvious that these propositions are not 
only distinct, but quite independent of each 
other : — one of them may be conclusively esta- 
blished, while the other is either disproved, or 
remains questionable. A book may contain a 
true narrative of events, though not written by 
the author, or in the age that have commonly 
been supposed. Or, on the other hand, it may 
undoubtedly be the production of the alleged 
author, but deserve little credit as a professed 
record of facts. Thus, for example, the Cyro- 
paedia is, on the best evidence, attributed to 
Xenophon ; but there is little reason to suppose 
that it deserves to be considered as more than 
an historical romance : — the genuineness of the 
work is certain ; but its authenticity as a his- 
tory is very questionable. But the first of these 
propositions is more independent of the second, 
than the second can be of the first. For when 
the proof of the proper antiquity and genuine- 
ness of an historical work is clearly demon- 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

strated, it is seldom difficult to fix the degree 
of credit that is due to the author, or to dis- 
cover those particular points on which there 
may he reason to suspect his veracity, to ques- 
tion the soundness of his judgment, or to doubt 
the accuracy of his information, 



CHAPTER I. 

ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE EXISTING 
REMAINS OF ANCIENT LITERATURE. 

The antiquity and genuineness of the extant 
remains of ancient literature maybe established 
by three lines of proof that are altogether in- 
dependent of each other ; and though, in any 
particular instance, one, or even two out of 
the three should be wanting, the remaining one 
may alone be perfectly conclusive : — when the 
three concur they present a redundant demon- 
stration of the facts in question. 

The Jirst line of proof relates to the history 
of certain copies of a work, which are now in 
existence. 

The second— traces the history of a work as 
it may be collected from the series of refer- 
ences made to it by succeeding writers. 

The third — is drawn from the known history 
of the language in which the work is extant. 

I. 

HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

The antiquity and integrity of a work are, it 
is obvious, liable to no dispute so far as the 



10 HISTORY OP MANUSCRIPTS. 

existence of any one copy of it can be traced 
back with certainty to the time of its first pub- 
lication. If, for example, a manuscript of a 
work in the author's hand writing were still 
extant, and if the fact of its being such could 
be proved, our argument would be concluded, 
and all other evidence must be deemed super- 
fluous. There are however few such unques- 
tionable autographs to be found even of modern 
works, and none of any ancient one. Yet the 
circumstances attending the preservation and 
transmission of manuscripts are, in some in- 
stances, as we shall see, such as to prove the 
antiquity and genuineness of a work with little 
less certainty than as if the very first copy of 
it were in existence. 

But before we enter into the particulars of 
this proof it should be mentioned, in conformity 
with the plan of the argument, which requires 
us to follow the order of time retrogressively, that 
it is unnecessary to trace the history of manu- 
scripts later than the early part of the fifteenth 
century, when most of the classic authors 
passed through the press. For the invention 
of printing has served as well to ascertain, 
beyond doubt, the existence of books at cer- 
tain dates, as to secure the text from interpo- 
lation and corruption. A printed book is not 
susceptible of subsequent interpolation or al- 
teration by the pen : it bears also a date, and 
the issuing of different editions of the same 



HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 11 

work from distant places, would render any 
falsification of date in one of them, or any ma- 
terial corruption of the text hy an editor, an 
absurd and nugatory attempt. There are 
for example, now extant, printed copies of 
the history of the Peloponnesian war, dated 
" Venice, 1502 ;" other copies of an edition of 
the same work dated " Florence, 1506 ;" others, 
dated " Basil, 1540;" and others, printed within 
a few years of the same time at Paris and 
Vienna. On being compared with each other, 
these editions are found to agree in the main ; 
and yet to disagree in many small variations 
of orthography, syntax, or expression ; so as to 
prove that they were separately derived from 
different manuscripts, and not successively 
from each other. These printed editions, there- 
fore, sufficiently prove the existence of the 
work in the fifteenth century; and also that 
the text of the modern editions has not been 
materially impaired or corrupted during the 
last four hundred years. 

Let it be imagined, that there are no 
other means of ascertaining the antiquity 
and genuineness of the classic authors than 
such as may be collected from the history of 
existing manuscripts : and our object then 
will be to discover to what age they may 
clearly be traced ; and to deduce from the 
facts of the case some inference relative to 
the length of time during which those works 



12 HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

have probably been under the process of tran- 
scription. 

The date of ancient manuscripts may be as- 
certained by such means as the following. 

1. Some manuscripts are known to have been 
preserved in the libraries where they are now 
found for several centuries : — for not only 
have they been mentioned in the catalogues of 
the depositories to which they belong, but ac- 
curately described by eminent scholars of suc- 
ceeding ages ; so that no doubt can remain of 
their identity. Or if they have changed hands, 
the particulars of the successive transfers are 
authentically recorded. 

2. A large proportion of existing manu- 
scripts are dated by the hand of the copyists, 
so as to leave no question as to the time when 
they were executed. 

3. Many have marginal notes, added evi- 
dently by a later hand, which by some inci- 
dental allusion to persons, events, or particular 
customs, or by the use of peculiar forms of 
expression, indicate clearly the age of the 
notes, and therefore carry that of the original 
manuscript somewhat higher. 

4. The remote antiquity of a manuscript is 
often established by the peculiar circumstance 
of its being discovered beneath another writing. 
These rewritten manuscripts — palimpsests, or 
rescripts, as they are termed, afford the most 
satisfactory proof of antiquity that can be 



HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 13 

imagined. Parchment, always a costly mate- 
rial, was greatly enhanced in price when the 
paper manufactured from the papyrus of the 
Nile began to be scarce, and before the time 
when that formed from cotton, called charta 
bombycina, came into general use. At the 
same period, owing to the general decline of 
learning, the works of the classic authors fell 
into neglect. The copyists, therefore, and 
especially the monks, whose libraries often 
contained large collections of parchment books, 
availed themselves of the valuable material 
which they possessed, by erasing or washing 
out the original writing, and then substituted 
lives of the saints, romances, meditations, or 
such other inanities as suited the taste of the 
times. But often, the faithful skin, tenacious 
of its pristine honours, retained the traces of 
the original writing with sufficient distinctness 
to render it still legible. These rescripts 
therefore, present a double proof of the anti- 
quity of the work which first occupied the 
parchment; for in most cases the date of 
the monkish writing is easily ascertained to 
be of the twelfth, or even the ninth century. 
Theirs* writing therefore must be dated con- 
siderably higher ; for it is much more probable 
that old, than that very recent books should 
have been selected for the purpose of erasure. 
Many invaluable manuscripts of the Holy 
Scriptures, and not a few precious fragments 



14 HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

of classic literature have been thus brought to 
light. 

5. The age of a manuscript may often be 
ascertained, with little chance of error, by 
some such indications as the following : — the 
quality or appearance of the ink ; the nature 
of the material ; that is to say, whether it be 
soft leather, or parchment, or the papyrus of 
Egypt, or the bombycine paper ; for these ma- 
terials succeeded each other in common use at 
periods that are well known ; — the peculiar 
form, size, and character of the writing ; for a 
regular progression in the modes of writing 
may be traced by abundant evidence through 
every age from the remotest times ;—■ -Jthe style 
of the ornaments or illuminations, as they are 
termed, often serves to indicate the age of the 
book which they decorate. 

From such indications as these, more or less 
definite and certain, the ancient manuscripts 
now extant are assigned to various periods, 
extending from the sixteenth to the fourth 
century of the Christian era ; or perhaps, in 
one or two instances, to the third, or second. 
Very few can claim an antiquity so high as the 
fourth century : but not a few are safely attri- 
buted to the seventh ; and a great proportion 
of those extant were unquestionably executed 
in the tenth ; and many belong to the following 
four hundred years. But it is to be observed 
that some manuscripts executed so late as the 



history op manuscripts: 15 

thirteenth or even the fifteenth century afford 
clear internal evidence that, by a single re- 
move only, the text they contain may claim a 
real antiquity, higher than that even of the 
oldest existing copy of the same work. For 
these older copies sometimes prove, by the pe- 
culiar nature of the corruptions which have 
crept into the text, that they have been derived 
through a long series of copies ; while perhaps 
the text of the more modern manuscript pos- 
sesses such a degree of purity and freedom 
from all the usual consequences of frequent 
transcription, as to make it manifest that the 
copy from which it was taken, was so ancient 
as not to be far distant from the time of the 
first publication of the work. 

Most, if not all the royal and university li- 
braries in Europe, as well as many private 
collections, contain great numbers of these 
literary relics of antiquity ; and some of them 
could furnish manuscripts of nearly the entire 
body of ancient literature. There are few of 
the classic authors that are not still extant in 
several manuscript copies ; and of some the 
existing copies are almost numberless. 

Although all the larger ancient libraries, 
such, for example, as those of Alexandria, of 
Constantinople, of Athens, and of Rome, were 
destroyed by the fanaticism of barbarian con- 
querors ; yet so extensive a diffusion of the 
most celebrated works had previously taken 



16 HISTORY OP MANUSCRIPTS. 

place throughout the Roman empire, that all 
parts of Europe and Western Asia abounded 
with smaller collections, or with single works 
in the hands of private persons. When learn- 
ing declined among the people, the religious 
houses became the chief receptacles of books ; 
for in almost every such establishment there 
were individuals who still cultivated literature 
and the sciences with ardour ; and who found 
no difficulty in buying up almost any quantity 
of this generally neglected property. 

Happily for literature, religious houses were 
places of greater security than even the for- 
tresses or palaces of kings, which by conquest 
or revolution were, from time to time, violently 
rent from their possessors ; while these sacred 
seclusions were usually respected, even by the 
fiercest invaders. And through a long course of 
ages they were occupied by an order of men who 
succeeded each other in a more tranquil course 
of transition than has taken place, perhaps, in 
any other instance that can be named. The pro- 
perty of each establishment (and the literary pro- 
perty was always highly prized) passed down, 
from age to age, as if under the hand of a per- 
manent proprietor, and was therefore subjected 
to fewer dispersions or destructions than the 
mutability of human affairs ordinarily permits. 

Every church, and every convent and monas- 
tery had its library, its librarian, and other offi- 
cers, employed in the conservation of the books. 



HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 1J 

Connected with the library was the scriptorium, 
where the elder monks employed themselves 
in making copies of such books as were falling 
into decay, or of such as there was still some 
demand for, out of their own establishment. 

By these means the literature of more en- 
lightened ages was preserved from extinction ; 
and when learning revived in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, a large portion of those 
long hoarded volumes flowed into the collec- 
tions of the munificent founders of libraries, 
and there, becoming known to the learned, were 
soon afterwards consigned to the immortal 
custody of the press. 

The places in which the remains of ancient 
literature were preserved during the middle 
ages were too many, too distant from each 
other, and too little connected by any kind of 
intercourse, to admit of a combination or con- 
spiracy for any supposed purposes of interpola- 
tion or corruption. Possessing therefore as we 
do, copies of the same author, some of which 
were drawn from the monasteries of England, 
others from those of Spain, and others collected 
in Egypt, Palestine, or Asia Minor, if, on com- 
paring them, we find that they accord, except 
in variations of little moment, we have an in- 
contestable proof of the care and integrity with 
which the business of transcription was gene- 
rally conducted. For if the practice of mutila- 



18 HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

tion, interpolation, and corruption, had been 
to any considerable extent admitted, the ex- 
isting remains of ancient authors could, after 
so long* a time, have retained scarcely a trace 
of integrity or uniformity. From a licentious 
principle of transcription, operating through 
one or two thousand years, must have resulted, 
not the connected and consistent works we ac- 
tually possess ; but a heterogeneous mass of 
mangled fragments. 

But if the general accordance of existing 
manuscripts attests the prevailing care, and 
even the scrupulousness of those through whose 
hands they passed, the specific nature of the 
diversities that do exist among the several 
copies of the same author serves to establish a 
fact which, if we did not know it by other 
means, it would be of the highest importance 
to prove : namely, that these works had already 
descended through a long course of time, when the 
existing copies were executed. This fact is es- 
pecially apparent in the earlier Greek authors ; 
for while some MSS. retain uniformly the 
peculiarities of the dialect in which the author 
wrote ; in others, these peculiarities are merged 
in those commoner forms of the language which 
prevailed after the time of Alexander. These 
deviations in orthography or construction from 
the author's text were evidently made by 
copyists in compliance with the tastes of pur- 



HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 19 

chasers in different countries ; nor were they 
likely to have been effected by transcribers of 
the middle ages, when these books were no 
longer in use by readers to whom the language 
was vernacular, and to whom alone an accord- 
ance with the colloquial forms of the language 
could be a matter of importance. 

Books in a dead language, intended for the 
use of the learned only, will never be accom- 
modated to the colloquial fashions of an inter- 
mediate period. If, for example, in examining 
two editions of the poems of Chaucer, one of 
them is found to retain all the original pecu- 
liarities of orthography proper to the author's 
time, while in the other, those peculiarities 
are softened down into the forms adopted in 
*he reign of Elizabeth, we should certainly at-* 
tribute the edition to that period rather than 
suppose the corrections to have been made by 
a modern editor. 

Again : — some MSS. present instances in 
which, when a passage is compared with the 
same in another copy, it is easy to perceive 
that an early transcriber, having fallen into an 
error, more than one succeeding transcriber has 
attempted a restoration of the genuine reading ; 
for the last conjectural emendation has plainly 
been framed out of two or three prior cor- 
rections. 

Thus the existing manuscripts of the classic 



20 HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

authors are traced, either by direct evidence, 
or by unquestionable inferences, very near to 
the age, and, in many instances, quite up to 
the age when these works were universally 
diffused, familiarly known, and incessantly 
quoted; and when, therefore, the history of 
each work may be easily and abundantly col- 
lected from the testimony of contemporary and 
succeeding authors. The various facts above 
alluded to serve to connect the literary remains 
of antiquity, now in our hands, with the period 
of their pristine existence. — We traverse the 
long era of general ignorance, that wide gulf 
which separates the intelligence and civiliza- 
tion of antiquity from the intelligence and civi- 
lization of modern times, and we land, as it 
were, upon the native soil of these monuments of 
mind, and once more find ourselves surrounded 
by that abundance of evidence which belongs 
to an advanced state of knowledge. We need 
not wish to trace the history of manuscripts fur- 
ther, than to the confines of that former world 
of learning and refinement. 

Indeed we need not be solicitous to trace the 
history of these literary relics a step further 
than fairly into the midst of the dark ages. 
For if all external and correlative evidence 
were wanting, if nothing were known concern- 
ing the classic authors except that, such as 
they now are, they were extant in the tenth cen- 



HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 



21 



tury, enough would be known to make it abun- 
dantly certain that these works were the pro- 
duct of a different, and of a distant age. The 
men of those times might indeed be the tran- 
scribers and conservators, and perhaps even the 
admirers of Thucydides, of Xenophon, of Aris- 
tophanes, of Plato, of Virgil, of Cicero, of 
Horace, and of Tacitus ; but assuredly they 
were not the authors of books such as those 
which bear these names. The living pictures 
of energy, wisdom, and liberty, which these 
monuments of taste and genius contain, were 
never imagined in the cells of a monastery, or 
composed in an age when nothing was to be 
seen abroad but ignorance, violence, and 
slavery; and nothing found within but a dream- 
ing philosophy, and a degrading superstition. 
It is not the prerogative of the human mind, 
however great its native powers may be, to 
pass far beyond the bounds of the scene by 
which it is immediately surrounded, or to frame 
homogeneous images, which, in their elements, 
as well as in their adjuncts, belong to an order 
of things altogether unknown. To the genius 
of man it is given to imitate, to select, to re- 
fine, and to exalt, but not to create. 



The general result of the facts brought toge- 



22 HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

ther in the preceding* section is this, namely, 
that the books now extant, and usually attri- 
buted to the Greek and Roman writers, have, 
such as we find them, descended from a very 
remote age. But this general affirmation must 
always be understood to include an exception 
of those smaller omissions, additions, and al- 
terations in the text, which have taken place 
either by design or inadvertency in the course 
of repeated transcriptions. 

The actual amount and importance of these 
corruptions of the text of ancient authors is 
very likely to be much overrated by general 
readers, who, seeing the subject continually 
alluded to in critical works, and knowing that 
criticisms upon " various readings" often oc- 
cupy a space five times exceeding* that filled 
by the text, and that they not seldom become 
the subject of voluminous and angry contro- 
versies, must be led to suppose that questions 
upon which the learned are so long and so se- 
riously employed cannot be otherwise than 
weighty and substantial. With a view of cor- 
recting this impression, so far as it may be 
erroneous, we shall now briefly explain the 
general nature, causes, and extent of these 
variations and corruptions.* 



* In the appendix the reader may see some specimens of these 
" various readings.'' 



VARIOUS READINGS. 23 

By far the greater proportion of all various 
readings — perhaps nineteen out of twenty, are 
purely of a verbal kind, and such as can claim 
the attention of none but philologists and 
grammarians : a few deserve the notice of 
every reader of ancient literature ; and a few 
demand the particular consideration of the 
student of history. Taken in a mass, the 
light in which they should be regarded is that 
of their furnishing a most significant and con- 
clusive proof of the care, fidelity, and exact- 
ness with which the business of copying was 
ordinarily conducted. For nothing less than a 
high degree, both of technical correctness and 
of professional integrity on the part of those 
who practised this craft, could have conveyed 
the text of ancient authors through a period (in 
some instances) of two thousand years, with 
alterations so trivial as those which, for the most 
part, are found actually to have taken place. 

When the discrepancies of manuscripts are 
such as materially to affect the sense of an 
author, upon some point of importance, and 
such therefore as to demand the exercise of 
discrimination on the part of the student of 
history, it becomes necessary to understand 
and to bear in mind what were probably the 
most common sources or occasions of these 
diversities. The following may be named as 
the most common causes of various readings* 



24 VARIOUS READINGS. 

1. Nothing is more probable than that au- 
thors who long survived the first publication 
of their works should, from time to time, issue 
revised copies ; and each of these altered 
copies would, if the work were in continual 
request, and were widely diffused, become the 
parent of a family of copies. Thus, without 
any fault on the part of the transcribers, a con- 
siderable amount of diversities would be ori- 
ginated and perpetuated. A large proportion, 
perhaps, of those variations which occupy the 
diligence and acumen of editors and critics, 
and for the rectification of which so many 
learned conjectures are often hazarded, have, 
in fact, arisen from the author's own hand in 
revising the copies which, at intervals, he 
delivered to his amanuenses. The perpetual 
opportunity afforded for introducing correc- 
tions, when a book was continually in request, 
would be likely to encourage, in fastidious 
authors, the habit of frequent revision s mean- 
time transcribers in distant countries might 
have no opportunity to collate the earlier with 
the later exemplars. This source of various 
readings seems to have been too little adverted 
to by critics ; though it might serve to solve 
some perplexing questions relative to the ge- 
nuineness of particular expressions or sentences 
which have fallen under suspicion from their 
non-existence in certain manuscripts. 



VARIOUS READINGS. 



25 



2. Some errors would, of course, arise from 
the mere inattention, carelessness, or ignorance 
of transcribers ; but fewer probably than may 
at first be imagined ; for besides that those 
who spent their lives in this occupation would 
generally acquire a high degree of technical 
accuracy of eye, ear, and hand, and that cor- 
rectness and legibility must have been the qua- 
lities upon which, principally, the marketable 
value of books depended ; it is known that in 
the monasteries, from whence the greater part 
of all existing MSS. proceeded, there were per- 
sons, qualified by their superior learning for 
the task, whose office it was to revise every 
book that issued from the scriptorium. Errors 
of inadvertency must however have occurred. 
If the author to be transcribed was read 
by one person, while several wrote from his 
voice, the process would be open to the mistakes 
of the reader's eye, and of the writer's hand ; 
but especially to those of the writer's ear, for 
words similar in sound might often be substi- 
tuted one for the other. Instances of this sort 
are of frequent occurrence, and the knowledge 
of the probable cause usually suggests the pro- 
per correction. If the writer read for himself, 
he would be liable to mistake letters of similar 
shape, to mistake the sense by a wrong division 
of words in his manner of reading, in conse- 
quence of which he might involuntarily accom- 



26 VARIOUS READINGS. 

modate the orthography or syntax to the sup- 
posed sense. The frequent use of contractions 
in writing was a very common source of errors ; 
for many of these abbreviations were extremely 
complicated, obscure, and ambiguous, so that 
an unskilful copyist was very likely to mistake 
one word for another. No parts of ancient 
books have suffered so much from errors of in- 
advertency as those which relate to numbers ; 
for as one numeral letter was easily mistaken 
for another, and as neither the sense of the pas- 
sage, nor the rules of orthography, nor syntax, 
suggested the genuine reading, when once an 
error had arisen, it would most often be perpe- 
tuated without remedy. It is, therefore, almost 
always unsafe to rest the stress of an argument 
upon any statement of numbers in ancient 
writers, unless some correlative computation 
confirms the reading of the text. Nothing can 
be more frivolous or unfair than to raise an ob- 
jection against the veracity or accuracy of an 
historian, upon some apparent incompatibility 
in his statement of numbers. Difficulties of this 
sort it is much better to attribute at once to a 
corruption of the text, than to discuss with ill- 
spent assiduity. 

3. The assumption of short marginal notes 
into the text, appears to have been a frequent 
source of various readings. When such notes 
supplied ellipses in the author's language, or 



VARIOUS READINGS. 27 

conduced much to the perspicuity of an obscure 
passage, the copyist would be very likely to 
incorporate the exegetical phrase, rather than 
that it should either be lost to the reader, or 
deform the margin. 

4. Transcribers frequently thought them- 
selves free to substitute modern for obsolete 
words or phrases ; and, as we have before no- 
ticed, sometimes consulted the wishes of their 
customers by exchanging the forms of one dia- 
lect (of the Greek) for those of another; or, 
more often, for the common forms of the lan- 
guage. Alterations of this kind have often been 
the occasion of bringing authentic works under 
needless suspicion ; for when the text has con- 
tained words or phrases which are known to 
belong to a later age than that of the supposed 
author, such incongruities have seemed to afford 
plain, proofs of spuriousness. 

5. Intentional omissions, interpolations, or 
alterations, were unquestionably sometimes 
made by transcribers. But so many are the 
means we possess for detecting such wilful cor- 
ruptions, drawn from a comparison of different 
manuscripts, or from the incongruity of the in- 
terpolated passage, that there is perhaps, alto- 
gether, more probability that, from some acci- 
dental peculiarity of style, genuine passages of 
ancient authors should fall under suspicion, 



28 VARIOUS READINGS. 

than that any actually spurious portions should 
entirely escape it. 

Of the above-mentioned causes of the existing 
various readings in the text of ancient authors, 
it should be remembered that the operation of 
the first was confined to the short term of the 
author's life; nor indeed, whatever may be the 
amount or importance of variations arising from 
this source, must they go to swell the number of 
corruptions of the text. The second source of 
variations was indeed open during the lapse of 
many centuries ; yet it has always been held in 
check by the diligent collation of copies, on the 
part of industrious critics, from age to age: and 
a large proportion of errors, arising from mere 
inadvertency, are either so palpable as to sug- 
gest the means of their own correction, or so 
trivial as to merit no attention, except from 
those who charge themselves with the duties of 
an editor. There is, besides, reason to believe 
that not a few existing MSS. of the most cele- 
brated authors, present a text that has passed 
through the process of transcription not oftener 
than once or twice ; and that each time the 
copy has been executed with scrupulous 
exactness. Variations arising from the third 
mad fourth sources, have perhaps occasioned to 
critics and editors more perplexity than those 
springing from any other cause ; yet these dif- 



QUOTATIONS. 29 

ferences are rarely of any moment, so far as the 
sense of the author is concerned : they are only 
important when they tend to perplex the ques- 
tion of date or genuineness. Corruptions of 
the fifth class must be acknowledged materially 
to affect the credit and value of ancient litera- 
ture, so far as there can be any reason to sus- 
pect their existence ; and every diligent student 
of history will think the investigation of cases 
of this kind deserving of his attention. 



II. 



THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT WORKS, COLLECTED FROM 
THE QUOTATIONS AND REFERENCES OF CONTEM- 
PORARY AND SUCCEEDING WRITERS. 

Let it now be imagined, that the Greek and 
Latin authors are extant only in the printed 
editions — that is to say, that all the ancient 
MSS. have long since perished, and that the 
various facts that have been referred to in the 
preceding pages are unknown. Our business 
then would be, to collect from these works such 
a series of mutual references, as should both 
prove the identity of the works now extant 
with those so referred to ; and also ascertain 
the relative places of the several writers in 
point of time. 

A single reference, found in one author to the 



30 QUOTATIONS. 

works of another, who, in his turn, needs the 
same kind of authentication, may seem to be a 
fallacious, insufficient, and obscure kind of 
proof; for this reference or quotation may 
possibly be an interpolation, or the reference 
may be too slight or indefinite to make it cer- 
tain that the work now extant is the same as 
that mentioned. But the validity of this kind 
of proof arises from its amount, its multifarious- 
ness, and its incidental character. For though a 
single and solitary testimony may be inconclu- 
sive, many hundred independent testimonies, 
all bearing upon the same point, are much more 
than sufficient to remove reasonable doubt; 
and if some of these references are slight and 
indefinite, others are full, particular, and com- 
plete. If some are formal and direct, and such 
therefore as might be supposed to have been 
inserted with a fraudulent design, others are 
altogether circuitous and incidental. If some 
have descended to us through the same chan- 
nels, others are derived from sources as far re- 
moved as can be imagined from the possibility 
of collusion. 

A work may happen to want this kind of evi- 
dence, and yet, on other grounds, possess a 
good claim to genuineness. But in fact almost 
all the existing remains of ancient literature are 
abundantly authenticated by the numerous and 
explicit quotations or descriptions that occur 



QUOTATIONS. 31 

in other works. And there are very few hooks 
that do not contain some direct or indirect al- 
lusions to other works ; so that the remains of 
ancient literature, taken as a mass, contains 
within itself the proof of the authenticity of 
each part. 

The nature of the case gives to this body of 
references a pyramidal form. In the most re- 
mote age it is, of course, of small amount ; in 
the next it becomes much more ample and sub- 
stantial ; and in later periods, it spreads over 
the entire surface of literature. 

The literature of the Greeks was national and 
original ; they borrowed from their neighbours 
less in poetry, philosophy, and history, than in 
religion or the arts : their early writers were 
not, in the modern sense of the term, men of 
learning : their works were the impulses of 
original genius, and of the moving spirit of the 
times. The habit of literary allusion and quo- 
tation was not formed, nor was it congruous 
with this order of intellectual production ; and 
yet the early Greek writers contain mutual re- 
ferences, which, if not numerous, are sufficient 
to establish and ascertain, in most instances, 
the genuineness of each. 

The second period of Greek literature was, 
in the natural order of things, an era of learn- 
ing, of criticism, and of imitation. The writers 
of this period, therefore, abound with references 



32 QUOTATIONS. 

of all kinds to their predecessors and contem- 
poraries. A second age of literature generally 
holds up a mirror of the first. Erudition, am- 
plitude, comprehension, method, labour, take 
place of spontaneous effort, and of intuitive 
taste. Commentators, compilers, and collectors 
abound ; and the writers of such an age seem 
to perform the function of caryatides in the tem- 
ple of learning ; as if their only business was 
to sustain the pediment which chiefly attracts 
the admiration ot spectators. Among writers 
of this class, therefore, we are to look for the 
most copious harvest of quotations ; and in 
their pages we shall rarely fail to meet with 
evidence bearing upon any question of genuine- 
ness. 

The Romans borrowed almost every thing 
but energy of character and practical good 
sense, from the Greeks. Their literature, from 
the first, was of a derived character ; their 
writers added learning to their native genius ; 
and their works, more or less, reflect the lite- 
rature of their masters. Sufficiently ample 
allusions, therefore, to the most celebrated of 
the Greek authors, as well as to those of their 
countrymen, are found scattered through the 
Latin classics. 

Both the Greek and Latin writers of later 
ages were well acquainted with the literature 
of brighter times ; and have left in their works 



QUOTATIONS. 38 

ample means for bringing down the chain of 
references to the time of the decline of learning 
in Europe — to that time up to which we have 
already traced the history of existing manu- 
scripts ; so that the two lines of evidence unite 
in the midst of the dark ages. 

The nature, extent, and validity of the evi- 
dence that may be derived from the mutual re- 
ferences of authors, will be best exhibited by a 
classification of its several kinds under the fol- 
lowing heads : — 

1. Literal quotations, whether the author 
from whom they are taken is named or not. 
These serve the double purpose of proving the 
existence of the work quoted in the time of the 
writer who makes the reference, and of identi- 
fying, and even of correcting the extant text. 
If, for example, in subsequent writers we find 
only a dozen or twenty sentences, taken from 
different parts of an earlier work, the verbal 
coincidence is sufficient to prove that the work, 
as it is now extant, is the same as that quoted. 
When such quotations are numerous and exact 
they afford the best means either of restoring 
the genuine reading of authors, or of judging 
of the comparative purity of different MSS. 
For frequently these quotations seem to have 
suffered less in the course of transcription than 
either the other parts of the work in which they 

n 



34 QUOTATIONS. 

are found, or than that from which they are 
taken. The reason of this may readily be ima- 
gined. — Either the author himself quoted from 
a copy purer than any now extant, or the tran- 
scriber, meeting with a passage which he re- 
membered to belong to a well-known work, con- 
sulted the original, of which he had a good copy, 
and the very circumstance of doing so would 
naturally induce somewhat more of care than 
usual in transcription. 

2. We meet with incidental allusions, either 
to the words or sense of an author, sufficiently 
obvious to prove that the one writer was known 
to the other, and yet too incidental and remote 
to be attributed to an interpolation. In ques- 
tions of apparent difficulty, such accidental re- 
ferences are often of conclusive force in proof 
of the existence of a work at a certain time. 
Among the ancient historians, there are many 
instances in which two writers, without men- 
tioning each other, narrate the same facts with 
so many coincidences of method, details, em- 
bellishments, or reflections, as to leave no room 
to doubt that either both narratives were de- 
rived from the same source, or that the one was 
copied from the other. And if the one narrative 
has altogether the air of originality, and is in 
perfect accordance with the writer's style and 
spirit, the other writer must be held to be the 



QUOTATIONS. 35 

quoting party, and therefore establishes the 
prior existence of the work from which he bor- 
rows. 

3. Most of the principal authors of antiquity 
have been explicitly mentioned, criticised, and 
described by later writers. Lists of their works 
have been given, with summaries of their con- 
tents ; or they have been made the subjects of 
connected commentaries, by means of which 
every portion of the original work may be iden- 
tified, and collated with existing* copies. Books 
of this secondary class are commonly fraught 
with references to the entire circle of literature 
that was extant in the writer's time. There 
are also extant several works containing the 
lives of ancient authors, with accurate lists of 
their works. These biographical pieces have, 
at the same time, afforded a security against the 
production of spurious works, and given occa- 
sion to such attempts ; for if some treatise, 
known to have been written by a celebrated 
author, is believed to have perished, an oppor- 
tunity was presented for composing one which 
should correspond with the description given 
of it. But such spurious works must always 
be wanting in positive evidence, and will never 
fail to betray the imposition by some glaring 
inconsistencies in the style or matter. The 
lives of statesmen and warriors often contain 
such allusions to the writers of the same age, 



36 QUOTATIONS. 

as suffice to prove the time when they flourished. 
All the information we possess on this head is, 
in many instances, derived from allusions of 
this sort. 

4. A fund of quotations is contained in some 
ancient treatises on particular subjects, in which 
all the authors who have handled the same 
topic are mentioned in the order of time. 

5. Controversies, whether literary, political, 
or religious, have usually occasioned copious 
and extensive quotations from works of all 
classes ; and on the spur of acrimonious dispu- 
tation many obscure facts have been adduced, 
which, by some circuitous connection with other 
facts, have served to determine questions of li- 
terary history. 

6. Among all the means of ascertaining the 
antiquity and genuineness of ancient books, 
none are more satisfactory or complete than 
those afforded by the existence of early trans- 
lations. Indeed, if such translations can be 
proved to have been made near to the time 
assigned to the author of the original work — 
if they correspond, in the main, with the exist- 
ing text — if they have descended to modern 
times through channels altogether independent 
of those which have conveyed the original work 
— and if, moreover, ancient translations of the 
same work, in several languages, are in exist- 
ence, no kind of proof can be more perfect or 



QUOTATIONS. 37 

infallible : in such cases every other evidence 
might safely be dispensed with. Ancient trans- 
lations serve also the important purpose of fur- 
nishing* a criterion by which to judge of the 
comparative merits of MSS., and by which also 
to determine questions of supposed interpola- 
tion. 

Though the genuineness of by far the greater 
part of ancient literature is established by a 
redundancy of testimonies, such as those here 
described, there will, of course, be some few 
instances of works which^ though probably ge- 
nuine, are so destitute of external proof, that 
they must remain under doubt; and there are 
also some few which, though probably spurious, 
have just so much plausible proof of genuine- 
ness, as serves to maintain them on the ground 
of controversy. The two together, therefore, 
will yield some number of disputable cases. 
The controversies that have actually been car- 
ried on relative to such doubtful works have 
served to show the exceedingly small chance 
which any actually spurious work can have of 
escaping suspicion and detection. And thus 
these discussions furnish, implicitly, the strong- 
est grounds for relying upon the genuineness 
of those works against which even a captious 
and whimsical scepticism can maintain no plau- 
sible objection. 



38 LANGUAGE. 



III. 



PROOFS OF THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF 
ANCIENT BOOKS, DERIVED FROM THE HISTORY OF 
THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT. 

A language is at once the most complete, and 
the least fallible of all historical records. A 
poem or a history may have been forged, but 
not a language. The bare circumstance of its 
existence, though it may long have ceased to 
be colloquially extant, proves in substance all 
that history can communicate. If we possessed 
only a complete vocabulary of an ancient lan- 
guage, and were to digest the mass in accord- 
ance with an exact principle of synthesis, we 
should frame a model of the people who once 
used it, more perfect than any other monuments 
can furnish : and here we need fear no falsifi- 
cations, no concealments, no flatteries, no ex- 
aggerations. The precise extent of knowledge 
and civilization to which a people have attained 
- — nothing more, and nothing less, is marked 
out in the list of words of which they have made 
use. 

A language, if we might use the comparison, 
may be called a cast, taken from the very life ; 



LANGUAGE. 39 

and it is one which represents the world of mind, 
as well as the world of matter. The common 
objects of nature — the peculiarities of climate — 
the works of art — the details of domestic life — 
political institutions — religious opinions and 
observances — philosophy, poetry, and art — 
every form and hue of the external world, and 
every modification of thought, find in language 
their representatives. 

Having therefore a complete knowledge of 
any language— that is to say, of the words of 
which it consists, we possess a mass of facts by 
which to judge of the claims to authenticity of 
every work in which that language is embodied. 
And if, in addition to a knowledge of its vocabu- 
lary, the laws of its construction, and the nicest 
proprieties of syntax and of style are known; and 
if, moreover, the changes that have taken place 
from age to age in the senses of words, and in 
modes of expression, are ascertained, we have 
ample and exact data with which to compare 
every book that pretends to antiquity and ge- 
nuineness. From a writer who employs his 
native language must be expected that he 
should conform to its standing usages ; that he 
should bend, more or less, to the peculiarities 
of the age in which he writes ; and that his vo- 
cabulary should fairly include that compass of 
words which his subject demands, and which 
the language affords. 



40 LANGUAGE. 

It is true that such a degree of skill in a dead 
language may be acquired as may enable a 
writer to use it with so exact a propriety as 
shall deceive, or at least perplex, even the best 
scholars. But the difficulty of avoiding all 
phrases of later origin, and all modern senses 
of those words which are continually passing 
from a literal to a metaphorical meaning, is so 
great, as to leave the chances of escaping de- 
tection extremely small. Yet, as such a chance 
still remains within the range of possibility, this 
line of evidence cannot be reckoned absolutely 
conclusive, but must only be employed as sub- 
sidiary to the other evidence that bears upon 
questions of authenticity. 

The minute changes which are continually 
taking place in most languages, and the history 
of which, when known, serves often to ascertain 
the date of ancient books, are of two kinds ; 
namely, those which result necessarily from 
actual changes in the objects represented by 
words, and those which are mere changes in the 
use and proprieties of language itself. 

Language being a mirror, reflecting all the 
communicable notions of the people who use it, 
every mutation in the condition of the people 
must bring with it either new terms, or new 
combinations of words ; and as the particular 
circumstances which introduce such additions 
or alterations are often well known, their oc- 



LANGUAGE. 41 

currence in an author may serve to fix the date 
of the book with little uncertainty. 

There is also a progression in language itself, 
independent of any alterations in the objects re- 
presented by words. Whenever a vocabulary 
affords a choice of appellatives, even for immu- 
table objects or notions, the caprices of conver- 
sation or of literature, affectation or excessive 
refinement, will, from time to time, occasion a 
new selection to be made. In all those terms, 
especially, which either bring with them ideas 
too familiar to accord with the proprieties of an 
elevated style, or which are in any degree of- 
fensive to delicacy, there will take place a con- 
tinual, and sometimes even a rapid substitution 
of new for old phrases ; not because the new 
are in themselves more dignified, or more pure 
than the old ; but because, when first intro- 
duced, they are untainted by gross associa- 
tions or vulgar use. 

Every language, therefore, of which copious 
specimens are extant, and of which the pro- 
gress is known, contains a latent history of 
the people through whose lips it has passed, 
and furnishes to the scholar a series of re con 
dite dates, by means of which literary remains 
may almost with certainty be assigned to their 
proper age. This sort of evidence bears the 
same relation to the history of books, which 



42 LANGUAGE. 

that derived from the successive changes known 
to have taken place in the mode of writing 
bears to the history of manuscripts. It is of a 
subsidiary kind, and from its very indirectness 
often deserves peculiar attention. 



CHAPTER II. 



FACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE HISTORY OF 

MANUSCRIPTS.* 



As our present inquiry relates to books, it 
will not of course include the ancient methods 



* For the facts mentioned in this chapter I am indebted 
chiefly to the works of Father Montfaucon, of which the titles 
are as follows : — 

PaljEOgraphia Gr^ca, sive de ortu et progressu literarum 
Graecarum, et de variis omnium saeculorum scriptionis Graecae 
generibus: itemque de abbreviationibus et de notis variarum 
artium ac disciplinarum. — Fol. Paris, 1708. 

Bibliotheca Coisliniana, olim Segueriana : sive manuscripto- 
rum omnium Graecorum quae in ea continentur, accurata de- 
scription ubi operum singulorum notitia datur, aetas cujusque 
manuscripti indicatur, vetustiorum specimina exhibentur, aliaque 
multa annotantur, quae ad Palaeographiam Graecam pertinent. — 
Fol. Paris, 1715. 

The Antiquity Explained, and the Italian Diary, of the 
same author, furnish similar information, to which I have added 
some particulars mentioned incidentally in the notes and 
prefaces of the. editors of classic authors. 



44 MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS. 

of engraving inscriptions upon marbles, metals, 
or precious stones. Yet it must be remem- 
bered that a knowledge of inscriptions is often 
highly important in furnishing a subsidiary and 
independent means of ascertaining the age of 
manuscripts by the character of the writing. 
For as there are extant almost innumerable 
specimens of writing upon the more durable 
materials, belonging to every age from the 
very earliest times, and as these inscriptions 
commonly contain, either an explicit date, or 
some allusion to public persons or events, they 
serve to determine, beyond doubt, the succes- 
sive changes that have taken place in the form 
of letters, and the modes of writing. 



1. 



MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS. 

No material for books has, perhaps, a 
higher claim to antiquity than the skin of the 
calf or goat tanned soft, and usually dyed red 
or yellow : the skins were generally connected 
in lengths, sometimes of a hundred feet, suffi- 
cient to contain an entire book, which then 
formed one roll or volume. These soft skins 
seem to have been more in use among the 
Jews and other Asiatics than among the people 



MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS. 45 

of Europe. The copies of the law found in the 
synagogues are often of this kind: the most 
ancient manuscripts extant are some copies of 
the Pentateuch on rolls of leather. 

Parchment — Pergamena, so called long after 
the time of its first use, from Pergamus, a city 
of Mysia, where the manufacture was improved 
and carried on to a great extent, is mentioned 
by Herodotus and Ctesias as a material which 
had been from time immemorial used for books : 
it has proved to be of all others, except that 
abovementioned, the most durable. The greater 
part of all manuscripts that are of higher anti- 
quity than the sixth century are on parchment; 
as well as, generally, all carefully written and 
curiously decorated manuscripts of later ages. 
The palimpsests, mentioned in the preceding 
chapter, are usually parchments : " It often 
happened," says Montfaucon, " that from the 
scarcity of parchment, the copyists, having 
erased the writing of ancient books, wrote upon 
them anew : these rewritten parchments were 
called palimpsests — scraped a second time, and 
often the ancient work was one of far greater 
value than that to which it gave place : this we 
have on many occasions had opportunity to ob- 
serve in the MSS. of the King's library, and 
in those of Italy. In some of these rescripts 
the first writing is so much obliterated as 
to be scarcely perceptible ; while in others, 



46 MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS. 

though not without much labour, it may still 
be read." 

The practice, still followed in the east, of 
writing upon the leaves of trees, was common 
in the remotest ages. The leaves of the 
mallow or of the palm were most used for this 
purpose : they were sometimes wrought toge- 
ther into larger surfaces ; but it is probable 
that this fragile and inconvenient material 
was only employed for ordinary purposes of 
business, letter writing, or the instruction of 
children. 

The inner bark of the linden or teil tree, and 
perhaps of some others, called by the Romans 
Liber, by the Greeks Biblos,* was so generally 
used as a material for writing as to have given 
its name to a book in both languages. Tables 
of solid wood called codices, whence the term 
codex for a manuscript on any material, has 
passed into common use, were also employed, 
but chiefly for legal documents, on which ac- 
count a system of laws came to be called a 
code. Leaves or tablets of lead or ivory are 
frequently mentioned by ancient authors as in 
common use for writing. But no material or 
preparation seems to have been so frequently 
employed on ordinary occasions as tablets co- 

* The word biblos or byblos, was afterwards almost appro- 
priated to books written upon the paper of Egypt. 



THE PAPER OF EGYPT. 47 

vered with a thin coat of coloured wax, which 
was readily removed by an iron needle, called 
a style; and from which the writing was as 
readily effaced by the blunt end of the same 
instrument. 

But during many ages the article most in 
use, and of which the consumption was so great 
as to form a principal branch of the commerce 
of the Mediterranean, was that manufactured 
from the papyrus of Egypt. Many manuscripts 
written upon this kind of paper in the sixth, 
and some even so early as the fourth century, 
are still extant. It formed the material of by 
far the larger proportion of all books from very 
early times till about the seventh or eighth 
century, when it gradually gave place to a still 
more convenient manufacture. 

The papyrus, or Egyptian reed, grew in vast 
quantities in the stagnant pools formed by the 
inundations of the Nile. The plant consists of 
a single stem, rising sometimes to the height of 
ten cubits : this stem, gradually tapering from 
the root, supports a spreading tuft at its sum- 
mit. The substance of the stem is fibrous, and 
the pith contains a sweet juice. Every part of 
this plant was put to some use by the Egyp- 
tians. The harder and lower part they formed 
into cups and other utensils ; the upper part 
into staves, or the ribs of boats : the sweet 
pith was a common article of food ; while the 



48 THE PAPER OF EGYPT. 

fibrous part of the stem was manufactured into 
cloth, sails for ships, ropes, strings, shoes, 
baskets, wicks for lamps, and, especially, into 
paper. For this purpose the fibrous coats of 
the plant were peeled off, the whole length of 
the stem. One layer of fibres was then laid 
across another upon a block, and being moist- 
ened, the glutinous juice of the plant formed 
a cement, sufficiently strong to give coherence 
to the fibres ; when greater solidity was re- 
quired, a size made from bread or glue was 
employed. The two films being thus connected, 
were pressed, dried in the sun, beaten with a 
broad mallet, and then polished with a shell. 
This texture was cut into various sizes, accord- 
ing to the use for which it was intended, vary- 
ing from thirteen to four finger's breadth, and 
of proportionate length. 

By progressive improvements, especially in 
the hands of the Roman artists, this Egyptian 
paper was brought to a high degree of perfec- 
tion. In later ages it was manufactured of 
considerable thickness, perfect whiteness, and 
an entire continuity and smoothness of surface. 
It was, however, at the best, so friable that 
when durability was required the copyists 
inserted a page of parchment between every 
five or six pages of the papyrus. Thus the 
firmness of the one substance defended the 
brittleness of the other ; and great numbers of 



THE BOMBYCINE PAPER. 49 

books so constituted have resisted the accidents 
and decays of twelve centuries. 

Three hundred years before the christian era 
the commerce in this article had extended over 
most parts of the civilized world ; and long after- 
wards it continued to be a principal source of 
wealth to the Egyptians. But at length the 
invention of another manufacture, and the in- 
terruption of commerce occasioned by the pos- 
session of Egypt by the Saracens, banished the 
paper of Egypt from common use. Compara- 
tively few manuscripts on this material are 
found of later date than the eighth or ninth 
century ; though it continued to be occasionally 
used long afterwards. 

The charta bombycina or cotton paper, often 
improperly called silk paper, was unquestion- 
ably manufactured in the east as early as the 
ninth century, possibly much earlier; and in 
the tenth it came into general use throughout 
Europe. This invention, not long afterwards, 
became still more available for general pur- 
poses by the substitution of old linen or cotton 
rags for the raw material ; by which means 
both the price of the article was reduced, and 
the quality improved. The cotton paper manu- 
factured in the ancient mode is still used in 
the east, and is a beautiful fabric. 

From this brief account of the materials 
successively employed for books, it will be ©b- 

E 



y 



50 DURABILITY OF BOOKS. 

vious, that a knowledge of the changes which 
these several manufactures underwent will 
often serve, especially when employed in sub- 
servience to other evidence, to ascertain the 
age of manuscripts ; or at least to furnish the 
means of detecting fabricated documents. 

The preservation of books, framed as they 
are of materials so destructible, through a 
period of twelve, or even fifteen hundred years, 
is a fact which might seem almost incredible ; 
especially as the decay of apparently more du- 
rable substances within a much shorter period, 
is continually presented to our notice. The mas- 
sive walls of the monasteries of the middle ages 
are often seen prostrate, and fast mingling with 
the soil ; while manuscripts penned within 
them, or perhaps when their stones were yet 
in the quarry, are still fair and perfect, glit- 
tering with their gold and silver, their cerulean 
and cinnabar. 

But the materials of books, though destructi- 
ble, are so far from being in themselves perish- 
able that, while defended from positive injuries, 
they appear to suifer scarcely at all from any 
intrinsic principle of decay, or to be liable to 
any perceptible process of decomposition. " No 
one," says Father Mabillon,* " unless totally 
unacquainted with what relates to antiquity, 

* De Re Diplomatica. 



DURABILITY OP BOOKS. 51 

can call in question the great durability of 
parchments ; since there are extant innumer- 
able books, written on that material, in the 
seventh and sixth centuries ; and some of a 
still more remote antiquity, by which all doubt 
on that subject might be removed. It may 
suffice here to mention the Virgil of the Vatican 
Library, which appears to be of more ancient 
date than the fourth century; and another in 
the King's Library little less ancient : also the 
Prudentius, in the same library, of equal age ; 
to which you may add several, already men- 
tioned, as the Psalter of S. Germanus, the 
Book of the Councils, and others, which are all 
of parchment. Many other instances I might 
name if it were proper to dwell upon a matter 
so well known to every one who is acquainted 
with antiquity. 

" The paper of Egypt, being more frail and 
brittle, may seem to be open to greater doubt ; 
yet there are not wanting books of great an- 
tiquity, by which its durability may be esta- 
blished. To go no further, there is in the Royal 
Library a very old codex written upon the 
philyra (or bark of the linden tree) containing 
the homilies of Avitus, I mean the copy from 
which the celebrated Jac. Sirmundus prepared 
his edition : we have also seen two other codices 
of the same material in the Petavian Library, 
containing some sermons of S. Augustine, 
which, in the opinion of the learned, are about 



52 INSTRUMENTS OF WRITING. 

1100 years old. Of the same kind is that rare 
and very ancient codex in the Ambrosian Li- 
brary, mutilated indeed, but consisting of many 
leaves of Egyptian paper, which contain some 
portions of the Jewish history of Josephus. 
These examples are sufficient to demonstrate 
the durability of the Egyptian paper in ancient 
books." The author then goes on to mention 
several instances of deeds and chartas written 
upon the paper of Egypt, still extant, though 
executed in the fourth and fifth centuries. 

Books have owed their conservation, not 
merely to the durability of the material of 
which they were formed, but to the peculiarity 
of their being at once precious, and yet not 
(in periods of general ignorance) marketable 
articles; of inestimable value to a few, and 
absolutely worthless in the opinion of the mul- 
titude. They were also often indebted for 
their preservation in periods of disorder and 
violence to the sacredness of the roofs under 
which they were lodged. 



II. 

THE INSTRUMENTS OF WRITING. INKS. 

The instruments used for writing were, of 
course, adapted to the material on which they 
were to be employed. For writing upon the 



INSTRUMENTS OF WRITING. 53 

brazen, leaden, or waxed tablets, above men- 
tioned, a needle, called a style was used, the 
upper end of which, being smooth and flat, 
served to obliterate the marks on the tab- 
let, as occasion might require. These styles 
were anciently most often formed of iron or 
brass ; but afterwards of ivory, bone, or wood. 
Indeed a fatal use having been, on several 
occasions, made of these pointed weapons by 
angry partizans in the public courts, the use 
of iron styles was prohibited ; Caesar, when 
attacked by the conspirators, is said to have 
used his iron style as a dagger, and with it 
to have pierced the arm of one of them : and 
the story of the Christian schoolmaster, Cas- 
sianus, is well known, who is said to have 
been killed by his scholars, armed with their 
styles : other similar instances are recorded. 

For the purpose of writing with ink, a ca- 
lamus, formed generally from a reed of the 
Nile, was used. Persons of distinction often 
wrote with a calamus of silver. The use of 
quills seems to have been of ancient date ; 
but long after the time when the fitness of the 
quill for the purpose of writing was known, 
the calamus of reed continued to be preferred. 
The scalpel, or knife for trimming the pen, 
the compasses, for measuring the distances of 
the lines, and the scissars, for cutting the 
paper, are always seen on the desk of the 



54 INKS. 

writers in the figures which adorn many an- 
cient manuscripts. 

The ink most used by the ancients has been 
said, but on rather uncertain authority, to 
have consisted of the black liquor found in the 
cuttle fish. But it is evident from chemical 
analysis that an opaque ink, very different 
from the mere dye or stain used at present, 
was commonly employed by the transcribers 
of books. This opaque ink seems, like the 
China ink, to have been formed from the sub- 
tile soot of lamps in which the purest com- 
bustibles were burnt. The coal of ivory, or of 
the finer woods, powdered, was also in use ; 
these or similar substances, mixed with gums, 
and diluted with acids, formed a pigment 
much more durable than modern ink ; but less 
fluent, and much less adapted to a rapid and 
continuous movement of the pen. 

" The ink," says Montfaucon, " which we 
see in the most ancient Greek manuscripts, 
has evidently lost much of its pristine black- 
ness ; yet neither has it become altogether 
yellow or faint ; but is rather tawny or deep 
red; and often is not far from a vermilion. 
You may see this in many manuscripts of the 
fourth and following centuries, to the twelfth. 
In many I say ; for some few, written with an 
ink more skilfully composed, have preserved 
their first blackness. This I have found, 



COLOURED INKS. 55 

though rarely, in some books which had at the 
end the date when the copy was made, 
reckoned, according to the manner of the 
Greeks, from the creation of the world. It 
has happened also, when the surface of the 
parchment, instead of being polished was 
spongy, that the ink has become yellow. In 
all the bombycine manuscripts, owing to the 
nature of the material, a separation of the 
parts of the ink has taken place ; the grosser 
part standing on the surface, while the finer 
has penetrated the substance of the paper." 

Inks of various colours, especially red, pur- 
ple, and blue, and also gold and silver inks, 
were much used by the ancients : few manu- 
scripts are destitute of some such ornamental 
diversities of colour, and many are splendidly 
recommended to the eye by these means. 
There was a purple ink, appropriated to the 
use of the emperors, and called the sacred 
encaustic ; but a dye, not easily distinguished 
from that which appears upon some imperial 
chartas, is found very commonly in books. 
" And they must have had a nice sight who 
could so distinguish between the two, as to 
have detected a violation of the law on this 
subject. The subscription commonly seen at 
the end of Greek manuscripts, containing the 
name of the transcriber, with the year, month, 
day, indiction, and sometimes the hour, Avhen 



56 METALLIC INKS. 

the copy was finished, are most often written 
in the imperial colour, especially in the times 
of the lower empire ; or if not in that ink, in 
one that cannot now be distinguished from it." 
The titles of chapters were frequently 
written alternately in red and cerulean : mar- 
ginal notes, most often in the latter colour. 
Books of a later date often have all the capi- 
tals of a bright green. The Greeks, more fre- 
quently than the Romans, used golden ink ; 
and many Greek MSS. are extant in which, 
not the titles and capitals only, but whole 
pages, are elegantly written in a pigment of 
the precious metals : but it was rather upon 
ecclesiastical than profane literature that this 
honour was bestowed. The works of the 
Fathers, chiefly, were so adorned, and some- 
times the Gospels : there is extant a copy 
of the four Evangelists, written upon purple 
parchment, in letters of gold throughout. The 
practice of using gold and silver inks was so 
common, that the manufacture of them became 
a distinct business ; and those who were skilled 
in this sort of writing seldom followed any 
other employment than that of inserting the 
titles, capitals, or emphatic words, in the 
copies executed by inferior hands. Several 
curious recipes for the preparation of the pre- 
cious pigments are given by the later Greek 
writers. 



EARLY GREEK WRITING. 57 

Those who have been long accustomed to 
inspect and examine ancient manuscripts 
acquire a certain tact in judging of the age of 
a book from " the condition of the ink, its 
colour and composition," which cannot be ex- 
plained to others, and for the exercise of which 
no rules can be laid down. But in cases where 
a fraud is suspected, this nice habit of the eye 
often at once detects the imposition. It is 
perhaps more practicable to give to a picture 
than to a manuscript, the hue of antiquity by 
artificial means. 



III. 



CHANGES INTRODUCED PROM AGE TO AGE IN THE 
FORMS OF LETTERS, AND THE GENERAL CHARAC- 
TER OF WRITING. 

An exact uniformity in the shapes of letters, 
and in the general appearance of writing, is 
hardly maintained for so long a period as fifty 
years in any language, especially if it be widely 
diffused. Within that space of time, the fashion 
of our own typography has undergone several 
changes, so perceptible as to afford a tolerably 
certain criterion of the date of books. No per- 
son, for example, who is familiar with books, 
would find it difficult, merely from the character 



58 



EARLY GREEK WRITING. 



of the type, to discriminate the age of works 
published at the several periods of 1775, 1800, 
and 1825. On similar grounds a knowledge of 
the successive changes introduced by caprice, 
accident, or a regard to convenience, in the an- 
cient modes of writing, affords an almost cer- 
tain means of determining the age of manu- 
scripts. 

The knowledge requisite for the exercise of 
this discrimination is derived, in part, from in- 
cidental allusions to modes of writing which 
occur in some ancient authors ; but principally 
from an extensive comparison of manuscripts 
themselves, and from a comparison of manu- 
scripts with inscriptions upon marbles, brazen 
tablets, or coins. From these sources may be 
collected a sufficiently precise idea of the cha- 
racter of writing prevailing in each century, 
from the second to the fifteenth of the Christian 
era. 

The oldest Greek manuscripts extant differ 
little in the form of the letters, or the general 
appearance of the writing, from the inscriptions 
that belong to the corresponding periods. 
They are written in capitals, called uncials, 
without division of words, and without marks 
of accentuation or punctuation. About the se- 
venth century, the custom of affixing the ac- 
cents and aspirates appears to have been intro- 
duced ; at the same time a greater degree of 



TACHYGRAPHIC WRITING. 59 

precision was observed in the formation of the 
letters, and in the directness and parallelism of 
the lines. To these improvements was added 
a change in the form of those letters which 
most impeded the rapid movement of the pen. 

In the eighth and ninth centuries a mode of 
writing which had been long before practised 
by* notaries and by the secretaries of public 
persons, was adopted by the transcribers of 
books. This was a kind of running hand, those 
who invented, or who most used it, being called 
tachygraphoi — swift writers. To adapt the 
Greek letters to the purposes of public business 
and common life, the square forms had been 
changed for curves ; and uprights for slopes : 
and while a radical resemblance to the primi- 
tive character was preserved, facility and free- 
dom were obtained. 

The uncial character was not, however, alto- 
gether abandoned by the copyists ; but modi- 
fications were introduced with a view to obtain 
greater facility : for the unconnected and up- 
right squares formerly used, seemed still more 
operose in execution after the running-hand 
had been adopted. The copyists of the eighth 
century introduced the practice of commencing 
books or chapters with a letter of large size, 
which they usually distinguished by grotesque 
decorations, somewhat in the manner seen in 
the printed books of the sixteenth century. 



60 WRITING OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

Those who gained their living by copying 
books, found so great an advantage in the 
adoption of the tachygraphic character, that 
they presently sought to improve it by every 
device that might favour the uninterrupted 
movement of the pen ; not content with joining 
the letters of each word, they combined them 
in forms that often bore little resemblance to 
the component characters. The books of the 
tenth and following centuries abound with 
these contractions, abbreviations, and symbols. 
Many entire words of common occurrence were 
indicated by single turns of the pen. A great 
part of these contractions were adopted by the 
first printers, and many of them continued in 
use till a very recent date. 

The manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries are distinguished by a degeneracy in 
the mode of writing, and a growing abuse of 
the principle of celerity and facility. To these 
symptoms of the influence of a mercantile mo- 
tive, put into activity by an increasing demand 
for books, may be added the practice of dis- 
charging the writing of old parchments, which 
most extensively prevailed at the same period. 
" A vast number of books," says Montfaucon, 
" of this sort, written upon erased parchments, 
are to be met with, executed in the twelfth, 
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. In most 
instances, the first writing is utterly oblite- 



PALIMPSESTS. 61 

rated ; yet the marks of the erasure are evident. 
Thus, in a MS. above described, not a letter, 
not a point, of the ancient writing remains ; 
but on many of the leaves may be discerned 
ruled lines, either transverse or perpendicular, 
which having been deeply impressed upon the 
parchment, could not be effaced ; so that these 
old lines often cross the new writing. Other 
pages of the same MS. present no such indica- 
tions ; the leaves having probably been taken 
from different books. In another MS., executed 
in the year 1186, though the ancient writing is 
generally obliterated, in a few places, if closely 
inspected, the ends of the letters may be per- 
ceived. In a word, if all the books of the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth centuries are examined, 
there will appear to be almost as many written 
upon erased, as upon new parchments. I am 
of opinion, that many authors extant in the 
time of Photius, and even in that of Porphyro- 
genitus, were utterly destroyed by the preva- 
lence of this pernicious practice. This plague, 
as it may be termed, spread its devastation 
among ancient books first in the twelfth cen- 
tury, and continued its ravages during the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth. The same thing is rarely 
to be observed in bombycine manuscripts : I 
have met only with one book of this material 
in which the first writing had been erased, and 
a second induced. The Greek writers of these 



62 BOMAN WRITING. 

times ordinarily erased a better work for the 
sake of substituting a worse; either one of 
their own inane productions, or those works of 
which there is no scarcity among MSS. The ex- 
tremest ignorance must certainly have pervaded 
Greece in those times, when what related to 
ancient history or to polite learning was not 
valued at a straw by the writers, who rather 
than purchase new parchment, destroyed, with- 
out scruple, ancient books." 

A progression similar to that which took 
place in Greek writing, distinguishes manu- 
scripts in the Latin language, and affords a like 
criterion of antiquity. Several MSS. believed, 
on good evidence, to belong to the third and 
fourth centuries, are extant, which present 
a style of writing nearly allied to that which 
appears in the inscriptions of the same period. 
But the uncial character gave place to the 
small letter at an earlier date among the 
Roman, than among the Greek copyists ; yet 
they seem to have availed themselves of the 
change in a much less degree for the purposes 
of celerity. Indeed, there is little more of con- 
tinuity, or of abbreviation in the small, than in 
the large character. . Towards the tenth cen- 
tury the Latin scribes adopted a square and 
heavy character, similar to that which is seen 
in legal documents. This wide and full-faced 
letter was so much exaggerated by the writers 



ROMAN WRITING. 63 

of the fourteenth century, as almost to blacken 
the page with its massiveness. Still, a hand- 
some regularity, and a fair degree of legibility 
were maintained. There are, indeed, some 
manuscripts of this period extant which, for 
mathematical exactness and beauty, might al- 
most compare with printed books. 

Nothing less, it is obvious, than a long con- 
tinued and extensive examination of ancient 
manuscripts, can confer such a degree of skill 
in discriminations of this kind, as might autho- 
rize the formation of an opinion in a case of 
difficulty. Yet the mere inspection of a small 
number of these relics of antiquity, may con- 
vince any one of the reality and distinctness of 
those progressive changes in the modes of 
writing upon which such discriminations are 
founded. The architecture of different periods 
is not more characteristic of the ages to which 
it belongs, than is the style of writing in 
manuscripts ; nor is there less certainty in 
determining questions of antiquity in the one 
case, than in the other. Particular instances 
may perplex or deceive the best informed and 
the most acute observers ; but the greater 
number of cases admit of no question. 



64 



GREEK BOOKS. 



IV. 



FORM OF ANCIENT BOOKS, THEIR ILLUMINATIONS, 

&C. 

The mode of compacting the sheets of their 
books remained the same among the Greeks 
during a long course of time : little, therefore, 
pertinent to our argument, is to be gathered 
on this head. The sheets were folded three or 
four together, and separately stitched : these 
parcels were then connected nearly in the same 
mode as is at present practised. Books were 
covered with linen, silk, or leather. 

The page was sometimes undivided ; some- 
times it contained two, and in a few instances 
of very ancient MSS., three columns. A pecu- 
liarity which attracts the eye in many Greek 
manuscripts, consists in the occurrence of ca- 
pitals on the margin, some way in advance of 
the line to which they belong ; and this capital 
sometimes happens to be the middle letter of a 
word. For when a sentence finishes in the 
middle of a line, the initial of the next is not 
distinguished, that honour being conferred 
upon the incipient letter of the next line ; 
thus — 



greek books. 65 

Thegreeksentering 
theregionofthema 
cronesformedanal 
liancewiththem.as 
t hepledgeoftheir 
faiththebarbarians 
gaveaspear. 

The Greeks, especially in the earliest times, 
divided their compositions into verses, or such 
short portions of sentences as we mark by a 
comma, each verse occupying a line ; and the 
number of these verses is often set down at 
the beginning or end of a book. The numbers 
of the verses were sometimes placed in the 
margin. 

Much intricacy and difficulty attends the 
subject of ancient punctuation ; nor could any 
satisfactory account of the rules and exceptions 
that have been gathered from existing MSS. be 
given, which should subserve the intention of 
this work. Generally speaking, though with 
frequent exceptions, the most ancient books 
have no separation of words, or punctuation of 
any kind ; others have a separation of words, 
but no punctuation ; in some, every word is 
separated from the following one by a point. 
In manuscripts of later date are found a regu- 
lar punctuation, and marks of accentuation. 
These circumstances enter into the estimate 



66 DECORATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS. 

when the antiquity of a book is under inquiry ; 
but the rules to be observed in considering them 
cannot be otherwise than recondite and intri- 
cate. 

Few ancient books are altogether destitute 
of decorations ; and many are splendidly 
adorned with pictorial ornaments. These con- 
sist either of flowery initials, grotesque cyphers, 
portraits, or even historical compositions. 
Sometimes diagrams, explanatory of the sub- 
jects mentioned by the author, are placed on the 
margin. Books written for the use of royal 
persons, or dignified ecclesiastics, usually con- 
tain the effigies of the proprietor, often attend- 
ed by his family, and by some allegorical or ce- 
lestial minister ; while the humble scribe, in 
monkish attire, kneels and presents the book to 
his patron. 

These illuminations, as they are called, al- 
most always exhibit some costume of the times, 
or some peculiarity, which serves to mark the 
age of the manuscript. Indeed a fund of anti- 
quarian information relative to the^middle 
ages has been collected from this source. 
Many of these pictured books exhibit a high 
degree of executive talent in the artist, yet 
labouring under the restraints of a barbarous 
taste. 



THE COPYISTS. $7 

V. 

THE COPYISTS. 

It is a matter of some importance to know by 
what class of persons, chiefly, the business of 
copying books was practised ; and it gives no 
little support to our confidence in the genuine- 
ness of existing manuscripts to find that indi- 
viduals of all ranks, influenced by very dif- 
ferent motives, devoted themselves to this em- 
ployment. From the earliest times in which 
literature flourished, there were, in all the 
principal cities of Greece and its colonies, great 
numbers of professional scribes ; that is to say, 
persons who gained their subsistence by copy- 
ing books. Labourers of this class, it may well 
be supposed, aimed, in general, at nothing but 
to gain custom by the fairness and fidelity of 
their copies. But it appears to have been not 
uncommon for persons of rank and leisure to 
occupy themselves in this employment.* Some 
created their own libraries by transcribing 
every book that came in their way. To persons 
of a sedate temper, or who by indisposition 
were confined to their homes, this occupation 

* " In the list of copyists we find the names of the nobles of 
the Constantinopolitan empire." — Montfaucon. 



68 THE COPYISTS. 

may be imagined to have been highly agree- 
able. Nor was it a wasted labour to those who 
had leisure at command ; since the high price 
of books made the collection of a library by 
purchase scarcely practicable, except to the 
most opulent. 

The influence of Christianity extended the 
practice of private copying; for motives of 
piety stimulated the industry of very many in 
the good work of multiplying the sacred books, 
and the works of the Christian writers. The 
highest dignitaries of the church, and princes 
even, thought themselves well employed in 
transcribing the gospels and epistles, the psal- 
ter, or the homilies or meditations of the fa- 
thers ; nor were the classic authors, as we shall 
see, neglected by these gratuitous copyists. 

But from the third or fourth century down- 
wards, the religious houses were the chief 
sources of books, and the monks were almost 
the only copyists. The employment was better 
suited than any other that can be imagined, to 
the monastic life. The mental and bodily inert- 
ness which the spirit and rules of the conven- 
tual orders tended to produce, when conjoined, 
in individuals, with some measure of native in- 
dustry, would find precisely that field of lethar- 
gic assiduity which it needed, in the business 
of copying books. In many monasteries this 
employment formed the chief occupation of the 



THE COPYISTS. 



69 



inmates ; and by few, if any, was it altogether 
neglected. 

Various appellations occur in the Greek au- 
thors, by which the several orders of writers 
were designated. Among the scribes or nota- 
ries attached to the service of public persons, 
there were always some eminent for the 
rapidity with which they wrote, and who 
therefore bore the title of tachygraphoi, or 
swift writers. But those who followed the bu- 
siness of copying books, in which legibility was 
the chief excellence, generally called them- 
selves kalligraphoi, or fair writers. Yet these 
appellations are often used interchangeably. 

The copyists usually subscribed their names 
at the end of every book, with the year in 
which it was executed ; to which they often 
added the name of the reigning emperor, * and, 
occasionally, some notice of the signal events 
of their times. From these incidental refer- 
ences much important historical information 



* Sometimes, though rarely, the name of the patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, for the time being, is added to the subscription of the 
copyist. MSS. written in Sicily, bear the name of its kings; 
those executed in the East, mention the Arabian or Turkish 
princes. The Greeks of the early ages commonly dated from the 
creation of the world, which they placed 5508 years before Christ. 
Sometimes they reckoned time from the death of Alexander the 
Great ; sometimes from the accession of Philip Aridsews ; some- 
times from the accession of Diocletian. 



7^ THE COPYISTS. 

has sometimes been collected. These signa- 
tures are usually, without doubt, written by 
the hand of the transcriber of the book. 

Besides the signature of the copyist, the 
margins of many manuscripts contain notes — 
often very trivial or absurd, from the hands of 
successive proprietors of the book; each ac- 
companied with some date or reference to per- 
sons or events, serving to fix the time of the 
annotator, and, by inference, proving the anti- 
quity of the manuscript. In a few instances 
the transcribers copied the subscription of the 
transcribers of the book from which they wrote; 
and if that former subscription bears a date, 
we have a double indication of antiquity. 

The fidelity of the copyists, and the genuine- 
ness and integrity of ancient manuscripts, are 
warmly and learnedly defended by the labo- 
rious Father Mabillon, on every occasion 
throughout his celebrated work, De Re Diploma* 
tica.* In a supplement he thus argues : — ■ 



* De Re Diplomatic^ Libri vi. in quibus quidquid ad ve. 
terum instrumentorum antiquitatem, materiam, scripturam et sti- 
lum ; quidquid ad sigilla, monogrammata, subscriptiones ac no- 
tas chronologicas ; quidquid inde ad antiquarian^ historicarn, 
forensemque disciplinam pertinet, explicatur et illustratur. Op. 
et Stud. Joh. Mabillon.— Fol. Paris, 1709. 

The leading motive which impelled the indefatigable author to 
the prosecution of the researches of which this work gives the 
result;, seems to have been the desire to establish the genuineness 



THE COPYISTS. 



n 



" Before I conclude this supplement, I think 
it may be proper to say something concerning 
the integrity and authority of ancient books, 
which some persons dispute. For assuredly, 
if the genuineness of charters and public deeds 
is doubted, the authority of ancient manu- 
scripts in general is also called in question ; 
and, if these doubts can be substantiated, it 
will appear that those who employ themselves 
in collating the printed editions of the fathers, 
or other sacred books, with ancient manu- 
scripts, spend their labour in vain. And hence, 
too, we must believe, contrary to the opinion 
of all learned persons, who think the world 
greatly indebted to the labours of the monks in 
transcribing books, that they toiled to no good 
purpose. Such persons, to give colour to their 
opinion, affirm that the existing ancient manu- 
scripts were executed by ignorant men, whose 
blunders are easily perceived by the learned ; 
and on this prejudice they have founded the 
decision, that manuscripts having been written, 
for the most part, by unskilful hands, and de- 

and integrity of ecclesiastical, and especially of monastic char- 
ters. In the course of his inquiries, he brings forward a vast va- 
riety and amount of information relating to the modes of writing 
practised in the monasteries, and in the courts of the French 
kings, during the middle ages. These facts are of course directly 
available in every argument that relates to the genuineness and 
antiquity of existing manuscripts in the Latin language. 



72 THE COPYISTS. 

rived many from one, are of little avail in un- 
derstanding or restoring an author. 

" But if this principle were admitted, our 
confidence in the printed editions, as well as in 
the ancient MSS. must fall to the ground. 
Neither the acts of councils, the works of the 
fathers, nor the Holy Scriptures, would retain 
any authority. For whence, I ask, proceeded 
the printed editions, both of profane and sacred 
writers ? were they not derived from ancient 
manuscripts ? If, therefore, these are of no 
authority, those can have none ; and thus, by 
this paradoxical opinion, the foundations, both 
of literature and of religion, are torn up. And, 
on this principle, there would be no force in 
the argument used by S. Augustine against 
the Manichaeans, who calumniously affirmed 
every place of Holy Scripture, by which their 
errors might be confuted, to be falsified and 
corrupted. But Augustine, in reply to Faus- 
tus, reminds him that whoever had first at- 
tempted such a corruption of the Scriptures, 
would have immediately been confuted by a 
multitude of ancient manuscripts, which were 
in the hands of all Christians. 

" On this principle the labours of the fathers, 
Jerom, Augustine, and others, in collating 
ancient books with modern copies, would have 
been fruitless. In vain the appeals of coun- 
cils to such authorities for the determination 



THE COPYISTS. 73 

of controversies ; in vain the costs and cares 
of princes and kings in collecting manuscripts 
from the remotest countries. And if the case 
be thus, the Vatican, the Florentine, the Am- 
brosian, and the royal (French) libraries are 
nothing better than useless heaps of parch- 
ment. And it was to no purpose that the 
Roman pontifs and the kings of France, as 
well as other prelates and princes, sent learned 
men to the farthest parts of the east to obtain 
ancient books in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
and other languages. And then the ancient 
transcribers must lose their credit, and espe- 
cially the monks, who devoted themselves en- 
tirely to the copying of books ; such were 
the disciples of S. Martin, among whom, ac- 
cording to Sulpicius, no art but that of 
writing was practised. For they thought they 
could not be better employed than while at 
once edifying themselves in the continual peru- 
sal of the Holy Scriptures, and spreading the 
precepts of the Lord far and wide by their 
pens. Of this opinion was the pious Guigo : 
* As we cannot preach the word with our lips,' 
says he, ' let us do it with our hands : for as 
many books as we transcribe, so many heralds 
of the truth do we send forth.' And thus also 
Peter the venerable, writing to Gislebert, a 
recluse, exhorts him to diligence in this exer- 
cise : ' For so you may become a silent preacher 



74 THE COPYISTS. 

of the divine word ; and though your tongue 
be mute, your hand will speak aloud in the 
ears of many people. And in future times, 
after your death, the fruit of your toils will 
remain, even as long as these books shall 
endure.' 

" But it is affirmed that the manuscripts we 
possess were, for the most part, written by 
unlearned persons ; and are they therefore 
undeserving of regard ? In the first place I 
deny that they were generally written by the 
unlearned. Certainly the blessed martyr 
Pamphilus who wrote out the greater part of 
the works of Origen was not unlearned ; nor 
was Jerome unlearned, nor Hilarius. Of Ful- 
gentius, the celebrated bishop (of Ruspa) it is 
reported that he was famed for his skill in the 
writer's art. The same praise was earned by 
those holy men Lucianus, Phiioromus, and Mar- 
cellus ; also by the blessed Plato and Theo- 
phanus. The blessed Marcella the younger, 
as says Jerome, wrote quickly and without 
fault. The venerable Bede, Radbert, Raban 
and others among our learned men, discharged 
the function of copyists, not of their own 
works only, but of those of others. 

" And even if the greater part of manu- 
scripts were written by unlearned men, they 
are not therefore to be accounted unskilful 
copyists, provided they read and copied accu- 



THE COPYISTS. 7& 

rately. Experience proves every day that 
those compositors are not the most correct 
who understand Latin, but that such are com- 
monly the most faulty ; especially in attempt- 
ing to correct that which they do not properly 
understand, and which those who know no- 
thing of the language set up accurately. But 
let it be granted that the copyists were un- 
learned: we know that the printed editions 
are not derived from a single copy, but from a 
comparison of many : the most careless scribe 
does not always err, and where he does, his 
mistakes are amended hy the collation of the 
copies of others. 

"Ina word, there were in all well ordered 
churches and monasteries, not only learned 
writers who transcribed books themselves, but 
learned correctors, who compared the copies 
made by others with the originals, and 
amended whatever was erroneous. ' A devoted 
scribe,' says Trithemius, ' when he has carefully 
written a book, compares it anew with the ori- 
ginal, and subjects it to a diligent revision.' 
Many instances might be adduced in proof of 
this revision and correction of manuscripts. 
One or two may suffice. In the library of the 
Vatican there is a manuscript written towards 
the close of the fifth, or in the beginning of 
the sixth century, containing the books of 
S. Hilary on the Trinity, which has been col- 



76 THE COPYISTS. 

lated with an older copy by some studious 
person, as appears by a note at the end. 
Again, Paul Warnefrid, deacon and monk of 
Casina, having copied the epistles of Gregory 
the Great, sent the book to Adalhard, abbot 
of Corbeia, requesting him to revise the copy ; 
but the abbot fearing lest he might alter the 
genuine text of so learned a doctor, contented 
himself with placing a mark in the margin at 
every place where there appeared to him to 
be an error. 

" But it is affirmed that there are many 
faulty, and many falsified manuscripts. That 
there are not a few faulty books I grant ; but 
that there are many falsified manuscripts I 
stoutly deny. The difference between a faulty 
and a falsified book is essential : of the former 
sort are those which, from the mistakes or 
negligence of the writer, contain some ble- 
mishes : of the latter kind are those which 
have been wilfully corrupted. Many indeed 
may appear to be falsified which are not so 
really, nor are even faulty. Which I may thus 
explain. — It could not but happen that the 
copyists, in transcribing large works, should 
sometimes wander from the true reading — 
putting perhaps one word for another. When 
they observed their error they might rectify it 
in two ways, either by erasing the word and 
inserting the genuine reading ; or, by insert- 



THE MONASTERY OF POMPOSIA. 77 

ing the true word beneath the other, which 
they marked with points. Now some persons, 
not understanding this, or purposely putting 
upon it an unfavourable construction, found 
upon the first case a charge of erasure, and in 
the second, place both words in the text of 
the author, though the pointed word ought to 
be omitted. Sometimes also it happened that 
words or initials written in vermilion, having 
grown pale, were renewed by a later hand, 
which alterations have occasioned an un- 
founded suspicion of falsification." 

The pens of the monastic scribes were chiefly 
occupied in transcribing religious books, the 
Holy Scriptures, the works of the Fathers, the 
lives of saints, books of meditations and pray- 
ers ; yet the classic authors were not neg- 
lected. Montfaucon in his Italian Diary ad- 
duces a letter from a monk of the monastery of 
Pomposia, in which the library of the establish- 
ment is described. — " The Monastery of Pom- 
posia has been much improved since the time 
of its founder Guido [about 1025] renowned 
for sanctity. Incited by the fame of his piety 
great numbers assumed the sacred habit in his 
church ; marquesses, counts, and sons of 
noblemen have laid aside the pomps and plea- 
sures of the world to follow there the duties 
of religion. Among these my master Jerome, 
afterwards abbot, was trained up from his 



78 THE MONASTERY OF POMPOSIA. 

earliest years to follow the monastic life, and 
made great proficiency in grammar and logic. 
He, for the edification of the brotherhood, set 
himself to collect the works of learned men ; 
in order that amidst the variety, all might 
meet with the information they sought for. 
Bonus — good — both in name and life, who was 
first a hermit and afterwards a monk, was his 
librarian, a man esteemed by all as a perfect 
scholar, and so eager in the acquisition of 
books that he purchased all he met with, how- 
ever indistinctly they were written; for the 
abbot determined to have them all transcribed 
for his library : and by his care almost all are 
now copied. He is ever inquisitive for reli- 
gious books of all kinds, so that the church of 
Pomposia is become the most renowned in 
Italy. Thus by the goodness of God our thirst 
of knowledge is increased by knowing. In- 
deed the abbot's desire of enriching his 
church with these treasures is unbounded. 
But envious persons may ask, Why does this 
reverend abbot place the heathen authors, 
the histories of tyrants, and such books, 
among theological works ? To this we answer 
in the words of the apostle, that there are 
vessels of clay as well as of gold. By these 
means the tastes of all men are excited to 
study — the intention of the gentile writings is 
the same as that of the Scriptures, to give us 



SEATS OP ANCIENT LITERATURE. 7$ 

a contempt for the world and secular great- 
ness." 

By these or similar apologies those of the 
monks, and there were some such in most 
houses, who possessed taste and learning, 
excused, to the more devout, the attention 
they bestowed upon the works of the profane 
authors. That the Greek and Latin classics 
were known and studied during what are 
called the dark ages, is capable of abundant 
proof, as we shall presently see. And those 
whose taste led them to be conversant with 
these writings took care by the labours of 
their hands to perpetuate the works they most 
admired. 



VI. 



THE PLACES MOST CELEBRATED FOR THE TRAN- 
SCRIPTION OF BOOKS. 

During the flourishing period of the Grecian 
republics, that is, from the defeat of Xerxes 
to the time of Alexander the Great, many 
of the Greek colonies almost equalled, or even 
surpassed the mother country in wealth, re- 
finement, and intelligence. In the neighbour- 
ing islands of the iEgean sea — in Asia Minor — 
in Italy and in Sicily, literature and philoso- 



80 ALEXANDRIA. 

phy were almost as eagerly cultivated as at 
Athens. Many of the most distinguished 
writers and philosophers were natives of the 
colonies ; and if Greece itself was the principal 
seat of learning, and the fountain head of 
books, whatever was there produced quickly 
found its way to distant settlements ; for to 
every city along the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean and the Euxine there was a standing 
exportation of books : in many of these remote 
cities libraries were collected, and the business 
of copying carried on. 

After the time of Alexander, Grecian litera- 
ture flourished no where so conspicuously as at 
Alexandria in Egypt, under the auspices of the 
Ptolemies. Here all the sects of philosophy 
were established; numerous schools were 
opened ; and, for the advancement of learning, 
a library was collected, which was supposed at 
one time to have contained 7^0,000 volumes in 
all languages. Connected with the library 
there were extensive offices, in which the busi- 
ness of transcribing books was carried on to a 
great extent, and with every possible advan- 
tage which royal munificence on the one hand, 
and learned assiduity on the other, could en- 
sure. Nor did the literary fame of Alexandria 
decline under the Roman emperors. Domitian, 
as Suetonius reports, sent scribes to Alexan- 
dria to copy books for the restoration of 



ALEXANDRIA. 81 

libraries that bad been destroyed by fire. And 
it seems to have been for some centuries after- 
wards a common practice for those who wished 
to form a library, to maintain copyists at 
Alexandria. The conquest of Egypt by the 
Saracens, A. D. 640, who burned the Alexan- 
drian Library, banished learning for a time 
from that, as from other countries which they 
occupied. 

Attains and his successors, the kings of 
Pergamus, were great encouragers of learn- 
ing : and the copying of books was carried on 
to so great an extent in their capital as to 
occasion the establishment of a vast manufac- 
ture of prepared skins, as mentioned above, 
which long continued to be a considerable 
article of commerce. The library of the kings 
of Pergamus is said to have consisted of 
200,000 books. 

During upwards of a thousand years, from 
the reign of Constantine, till the fall of Con- 
stantinople, that city was the principal seat of 
learning, and the chief source of books. The 
Byzantine historians are frequent in their 
praises of the munificence of the emperors 
in purchasing books, and in providing for 
their reproduction. The manuscripts executed 
at Constantinople are often remarkable for 
the beauty of the writing, and the splen- 
dour of the decorations. Besides the imperial 

G 



82 



MOUNT ATHO. 



libraries, the churches and monasteries jrf the 
city were all enriched with collections, more or 
less extensive, and in all of them the business 
of transcription was constantly and actively 
pursued. 

A large number of existing manuscripts are 
dated from the monasteries of the country im- 
mediately surrounding the metropolis of the 
eastern empire ; and many from those of Asia 
Minor,* from the islands of the .ZEgean Sea, 
and especially from Cyprus. 

But no spot was more famed for the produc- 
tion of books than Mount Atho — the lofty pro- 
montory which stretches from the Macedonian 
coast far into the iEgean Sea. The heights 
and the sides of this mountain were almost 
covered with religious houses, rendered by art 
and nature, and by the universal opinion of 
the sanctity of the monks of the ' holy moun- 
tain,' so secure that neither the meditations 
nor employments of the recluses were disturb- 
ed by the approach of violence. The chief 
occupation of the inmates of these establish- 
ments is affirmed to have been the transcription 
of books, of which each monastery boasted a 
large collection. 

Many extant MSS. prove that the copying 
of books was practised extensively during the 
middle ages in the monasteries of the Morea, 
in those of the islands of Euboea and of Crete. 



EUROPEAN MONASTERIES. 83 

This latter island seems indeed to have been 
a place of refuge for men of learning during 
the latter periods of the eastern empire, who 
found in its monasteries, shelter and the means 
of subsistence. 

Fifty religious establishments in Calabria 
and the kingdom of Naples are mentioned, from 
which proceeded a large number of the books 
afterwards collected in the libraries of Rome, 
Florence, Venice and Milan. 

In the monasteries of western Europe also, 
especially in those of the British Islands, this 
system of copying was carried on. Though 
there were considerable diversities in the rules 
and practices of the monks of different orders, 
the elements of the monastic life were in all 
orders and in every country the same; and 
generally speaking wherever there were mo- 
nasteries there was a manufacture of books. 
Yet in some houses these labours of the pen 
were much more worthily directed than in 
others. For while the monks of one monas- 
tery employed themselves in transcribing 
nothing but missals, legends, or romances, 
others enriched their libraries with splendid 
copies of the fathers of the church, and of the 
Holy Scriptures ; and some, though a smaller 
number, took care to reproduce such of the 
classic authors as they might be acquainted 
with. 



84 MONASTIC LIFE. 

The monastic institutions seemed as if framed 
for the special purpose of transmitting the re- 
mains of ancient literature, sacred and profane, 
through a period in which, except for so ex- 
traordinary a provision, they must inevitably 
have perished. In every country a large class 
of the community being freed from the neces- 
sity of labour, and excluded from active em- 
ployments, was constrained to seek the means 
of allaying the tortures of listlessness ; and 
nothing could answer this purpose better than 
the transcription of books. And to this em- 
ployment, congruous as it was to the physical 
habits induced by an inert mode of life, and 
compatible with the observance of a round 
of unvarying formalities, was attached an 
opinion of meritoriousness which served to 
animate the diligence of the labourer. " This 
book, copied by M. N. for the benefit of his 
soul, was finished in the year, &c. — may the 
Lord think upon him." Such are the subscrip- 
tions of many of the manuscripts of the middle 
ages. 

" Meanwhile along the cloister's painted side, 
The monks — each bending low upon his book 
With head on hand reclined — their studies plied ; 
Forbid to parley, or in front to look, 
Lengthways their regulated seats they took ; 
The strutting prior gazed with pompous mien, 
And wakeful tongue, prepared with prompt rebuke, 



MONASTIC LIFE. 85 

If monk asleep in sheltering hood was seen ; 
He wary often peeped beneath that russet screen. 

" Hard by, against the window's adverse light, 
Where desks were wont in length of row to stand, 
The gowned artificers inclined to write ; 
The pen of silver glistened in the hand ; 
Some on their fingers rhyming Latin scanned ; 
Some textile gold from balls unwinding drew, 
And on strained velvet stately portraits planned ; 
Here arms, there faces shone in embrio view, 
At last to glittering life the total figures grew." 

Fosbrooke. 



CHAPTER III. 

INDICATIONS OF THE EXISTENCE OF ANCIENT LI- 
TERATURE FROM THE DECLINE OF LEARNING IN 
THE SEVENTH CENTURY, TO ITS RESTORATION IN 
THE FIFTEENTH. 



General epithets usually carry with them a 
meaning that oversteps the bounds of truth : 
we hear of ' the dark ages' — ' the period of 
intellectual night' — ' the season of winter in 
the history of man' — and we are apt to imagine 
that during the times thus designated the hu- 
man mind was utterly palsied, and all learning 
extinct. But in fact throughout that period, 
reason, though misdirected, was not sleeping, 
philosophy was rather bewildered than inert ; 
and learning was immured but not lost. 

In no part of the period that extends from 
the reign of Justinian, when Greek and Ro- 
man literature every where lay open to the 
light of day, till the fall of the Constantinopolitan 
empire and the revival of learning in the 
fifteenth century, do we entirely lose the traces 



WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 87 

even of the classic authors, much less of sacred 
literature ; for in each of the intervening ages, 
and in every quarter of Europe, there were 
writers whose works, being still extant, give 
abundant evidence of their acquaintance with 
most of the principal authors of more remote 
times. 

Under the vague impression created by cer- 
tain loose modes of speaking relative to the 
deep and universal ignorance said to have 
prevailed in Europe during a space of seven 
hundred years, the existence of a large num- 
ber of manuscripts of the classic authors, 
executed during those very ages of ignorance, 
presents a great apparent difficulty : for, from 
what motive, it may be asked, or for whose 
use were these works transcribed so frequently 
as to be found in all parts of Europe on the 
revival of learning in the fifteenth century? 
The facts now to be mentioned will, to some 
extent, furnish a solution of this question, by 
proving that in the west and in the east, during 
these times of general intellectual lethargy, 
there were not a few individuals who culti- 
vated polite literature with ardour, and to 
whom the possession and preservation of 
books was a matter of lively interest. The 
names about to be mentioned, as every one 
will recollect, bear but a small proportion to 
the whole number that might be adduced : it is 



88 WRITERS OF THE 

sufficient for our purpose to refer to one or two 
writers in each century. 

The sixth century of the Christian era abounds 
with the names of writers in all departments 
of literature; many of whose works, having 
descended to modern times, present ample 
evidence of the undiminished diffusion of ge- 
neral learning. Among these may be men- 
tioned Procopius, the historian of the reign of 
Justinian ; — Agathias, who continued the same 
history ; — Boethius, author of the last specimen 
of pure latinity — a poem on 'the Consolation of 
Philosophy;' — Hesychius, the lexicographer; 
— Proclus, a platonic philosopher ; — Fulgen- 
tius, and Cassiodorus, ecclesiastical writers; — 
Priscianus, a grammarian; — Gildas the wise, 
an Anglo Saxon historian ; — Evagrius Scholas- 
ticus, an ecclesiastical historian ; — Simpiicius, 
the commentator upon Aristotle and Epictetus ; 
— -Marcellinus Ammianus, an historian and 
critic, whose works contain copious references 
to ancient literature ; — and Stephen of Byzan- 
tium, a grammarian and geographer. 

The seventh century produced fewer writers 
than perhaps any other period that can be named 
within the compass of history. The only names 
that here claim to be mentioned are those of 
Theophylact of Simocatta, who has left a history 
of the reign of the emperor Mauritius, not very 
highly esteemed indeed, but not deficient in 



MIDDLE AGES. 89 

allusions to the literature of the times ; and 
Isidore, an ecclesiastical writer. 

In the latter part of the seventh, and in the 
first years of the eighth century flourished our 
countryman Bede, whose writings, when it is 
remembered that he passed his life in the 
seclusion of a remote monastery,* afford the 
most ample proof of the general diffusion 
of books of all classes in that age. Bede 
displays extensive if not profound learn- 
ing, the whole of which he acquired from the 
sources ordinarily within the reach of monas- 
tic students. " Bede," says Sixtus Senensis,*^ 
a learned Italian of the sixteenth century, 
ii was a man of universal learning, not less 
skilled in the Greek than in the Latin tongue ; 
a poet, a rhetorician, an historian, an astrono- 
mer, an arithmetician, a master of chronology 
and geography, a philosopher, and a theolo- 
gian. So much was he admired in his own 
times that it became a proverbial saying 
among the learned, ' A man born in the far- 
thest corner of the earth has compassed the 
earth with the line of his genius.' His works, 
even during his life, and while he continued 
to write, were, by the ordinance of the British 
bishops, appointed to be read in churches." 

* St. Peter and St. Paul, on the Tyne, in the Diocese of Dur- 
ham. 

t Quoted by Blount, in his " Censura Celebriorum Authorum." 



90 WRITERS OF THE 

" He was," says Bale, bishop of Ossory (1532) 
" versed in the profane authors beyond any 
man of that age. Physics and general learning 
he derived, not from turbid streams, but from 
the pure fountains ; that is, from the chief 
Greek and Latin authors. Indeed, there is 
hardly any thing of value in the compass of 
ancient literature, that is not to be met with in 
Bede, although he never travelled beyond the 
limits of his native land." " Our Bede," says 
Pits, in his Lives of English Writers (1590) 
" was a man so universally learned, that Eu- 
rope has hardly produced his equal." 

Alcuin, one of Bede's disciples, did much by 
his learning and influence at the court of 
Charlemagne,* to aid the endeavours of that 
enlightened prince for the restoration of litera- 



* Charlemagne, himself tolerably well acquainted with Latin 
and Greek authors, zealously laboured to restore learning in the 
church, and out of it. He invited learned men to his court, 
employed them in making Latin translations of the Greek classics 
and of the Fathers, founded public schools, and introduced regu- 
lations tending to make some degree of education indispensable 
to all who held office in the church. Of the professors invited 
by Charlemagne to his court as many came from the British 
Isles as from Italy. " We must not forget," says Muratori, "the 
praise of Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, which, in the study of 
the liberal arts, surpassed all other nations of the West in those 
times, nor omit to record the diligence of the monks of those 
countries who roused and maintained the glory of letters which 
every where else was languishing or fallen." 



MIDDLE AGES. 91 

tiire. He was skilled in the Latin, Greek, and 
Hebrew languages ; gave lectures in all the 
sciences, and founded many public schools. His 
works, historical and theological, are in part 
extant, and justify the reputation he enjoyed. 
In his letters he familiarly quotes Virgil, Ovid, 
and Horace. 

Raban Maurus, a disciple of Alcuin, and 
created archbishop of Mentz in 847 5 before his 
elevation taught theology, philosophy, poetry, 
and rhetoric at Paris, in the school established 
there by the Anglo-Saxon monks. " A man," 
says Trithemius, abbot of Spanheim, (1500) 
" well versed in the Holy Scriptures, and tho- 
roughly learned in profane literature, as his 
writings abundantly testify." He enriched the 
monastery of Fulda, on the Rhine, where he 
received his early education, with a large 
collection of books ; and there he founded a 
school. Two hundred and seventy monks be- 
longed to the establishment, who were trained 
by him in every branch of learning. Disciples 
flocked to him from all countries, and he reared 
for the church a great number of ministers well 
furnished for its service. He died 856. 

One of the first professors in the university 
of Oxford, founded (or restored) by King 
Alfred,* was John Scot ; he afterwards went 

* Before the Danish incursions, the English monasteries and 



92 WRITERS OF THE 

into France, where he was honourably enter- 
tained at the court of Charles the bald, at 
whose request he translated some Greek au- 
thors into Latin : but these versions, in which 
a literal adherence to the original was observed, 
were scarcely intelligible to those for whose 
use they were intended. His writings display, 
however, much various learning ; they were 
condemned as heretical by the church on ac- 
count of his opinions relative to the eucharist. 
Being driven from France by the order of the 
pope, he took refuge in an English monastery ; 
but there, at the instigation of the monks, he, 
like CassianUs, was killed by his scholars, with 
their iron styles. 

churches abounded with men of learning ; but these establish- 
ments being broken up, and the monks dispersed by the rude 
invaders, literature and the arts became almost extinct in the 
country. Alfred, himself a man of learning, and a various writer, 
effected much towards their restoration, by the re-establishment 
of the ruined monasteries — the erection of many new ones — the 
endowment of schools — the foundation of lectureships at Oxford, 
and by the diffusion of his own writings, which, even if he had 
not been a king, would have perpetuated his name. In the list 
of his works appear several translations of Latin authors into 
Saxon : there is also a translation of iEsop's Fables, said to have 
been rendered by him from the Greek. It is also affirmed by 
William of Malmsbury, that Alfred translated the Old and New 
Testaments into the vernacular tongue. These literary labours, 
carried on amidst the cares of government, are striking proofs of 
an ardent and intelligent zeal for the diffusion of knowledge 
among his people at large. 



MIDDLE AGES. 



93 



Contemporary with the last-named writer 
was Photius, with whom no author of that, or 
of several succeeding ages, can be compared : 
his works hold up a mirror of all the literature 
extant in his times. Photius, educated for se- 
cular employments, and for some time engaged 
in the service of Michael III. was by that em- 
peror forcibly invested with the dignity of 
patriarch of Constantinople (858) in the room 
of Ignatius. That he might pass regularly to 
this elevation, he was made monk, reader, sub- 
deacon, deacon, priest, and patriarch, in the 
course of six days. From the office thus vio- 
lently assumed, he was, with little ceremony, 
expelled by Basilius, the successor of Michael. 
Once again, at the head of a band of soldiers, 
he possessed himself of the patriarchate, of 
which, by similar means, he was at length 
finally deprived ; after which he retired to a 
monastery, where he ended his days. Before 
his elevation, he had composed the most useful 
and the most celebrated of his works, the Myrio- 
biblion, which contains, in the form of criticisms, 
analyses, and extracts, an account of upwards 
of 270 works. This treasury of learning pre- 
serves many valuable fragments from authors 
whose works have perished, and affords the 
most important aid in ascertaining the genuine- 
ness of many of the remains of ancient litera- 
ture. 



94 WRITERS OF THE 

Eutychius, an Egyptian physician, and after- 
wards (933) patriarch of Alexandria, wrote a 
universal history, still extant, which, though it 
contains numerous fables, exhibits the various 
learning of the author. Though so large a num- 
ber of existing manuscripts were executed in 
the tenth century, as to prove that a great de- 
gree of activity in the reproduction of books 
prevailed in that age, it presents the names of 
few authors whose works have descended to 
modern times. 

The eleventh century is much richer in dis- 
tinguished names, of which it may suffice to 
mention the following : — 

Avicenna, an Arabian physician and Maho- 
metan doctor, reduced the science of medicine 
to a systematic form, including almost every 
thing that had been written on the subject by 
his predecessors : he was well versed in Greek 
literature, and is said to have committed Aris- 
totle's metaphysics to memory. * 

* The first conquests of the Saracens in Asia, Africa, and Spain, 
during the seventh and eighth centuries, were almost fatal to the 
interests of learning. But no sooner had they well established 
their power in the conquered countries, than the caliphs sought 
to rekindle the light of knowledge. During two or three centu- 
ries, Bagdat in the east, and Cordova in the west, Mere the seats, 
not only of splendid monarchies, but of science, general learning, 
and great refinement. It was, however, chiefly the mathematical 
and physical sciences that were cultivated by the Arabians. They 



MIDDLE AGES. 95 

Michael Psellus, a Greek physician, and a 
monk, wrote upon subjects of all kinds: "There 
was no science which he did not either illus- 
trate by his comments, or abridge, or reduce 
to a better method." — " A man celebrated for 
the extent of his acquirements in divine and 
human learning, as his many works, both 
printed and in manuscript, evince." 

Lanfranc, by birth an Italian, was created 
archbishop of Canterbury by William of Nor- 
mandy; he promoted learning among the clergy, 
and was himself esteemed universally accom- 
plished in the literature extant in that age. 

Anselm, the disciple and successor of Lan- 
franc in the see of Canterbury, was also in re- 
pute for general learning. 

The works of Suidas, a Byzantine monk, like 
those of Photius, contain a store of various 
learning, singularly useful on points of criti- 
cism and literary history. The lexicon of this 
writer, besides the definition of words, contains 
accounts of ancient authors of all classes, and 
many quotations from works that have since 
perished. 

possessed imperfect and corrupted translations of several of the 
Greek authors, especially of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Euclid, and 
Dioscorides ; and had some general, though imperfect, acquaint- 
ance with the historians. Some of the Latin translations, made 
by the order of Charlemagne, were derived from these Arabian 
versions. 



96 WRITERS OF THE 

Sigebert, a monk of Brabant, has left a chro- 
nicle of events from A.D. 381 to his own times, 
1112, and a work containing- the lives of illus- 
trious men. "A man," says Trithemius, "pro- 
foundly versed in the Scriptures from his youth, 
and inferior to none of his countrymen in gene- 
ral learning." 

The name of Anna Comnena, daughter of 
the emperor Alexius Comnenus, and wife of 
Nicephorus Bryennius, distinguishes the early 
part of the twelfth century. She wrote an ele- 
gant and eloquent history of her father's reign. 
This work displays not only a masculine under- 
standing, but an extensive acquaintance with 
literature and the sciences. 

England produced during this century se- 
veral eminent writers, accomplished in the 
learning of the age. Such were William of 
Malmesbury, Henry of Huntington, Geoffery 
of Monmouth, and Joseph of Exeter, author of 
two Latin poems, on the Trojan war, and the 
war of Antioch, or the Crusade ; and, some- 
what later, Stephen Langton, archbishop of 
Canterbury, reckoned the most learned man of 
western Europe in those times. 

Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, flou- 
rished towards the close of the twelfth century. 
His commentaries on Homer, besides serving 
to elucidate the Greek language by many im- 
portant criticisms, drawn from sources that 



MIDDLE AGES. 9? 

have since been lost, contain, like the works of 
Photius and Suidas, innumerable references to 
the Greek classics, and thus furnish the means 
of ascertaining the integrity and genuineness 
of the text of those authors as they are now 
extant. 

John and Isaac Tzetzes, critics and gramma- 
rians of Constantinople, are still consulted as 
commentators upon some of the Greek authors. 

Robert Grostest (Greathead) bishop of Lin- 
coln, was famed for his skill in the Latin, Greek, 
and Hebrew languages, as well as for the bold 
resistance he made to the exactions of the popes 
upon the English church. Camden says of him 
that " he was a man versed in the languages 
and in general literature in a degree scarcely 
credible, when the age in which he lived is con- 
sidered; a terrible reprover of the pope, the 
adviser of his king (Henry III.), and a lover of 
truth." 

Matthew Paris, the English historian, dis- 
plays in his works an acquaintance with ancient 
literature, as well as a familiar knowledge of 
the antiquities of his native country. Like the 
prelate last named, Paris vigorously opposed 
the papal usurpations in England ; nor did he 
less courageously reprove vice in every rank 
at home. His reputation as a man of learning 
and virtue enabled him to effect a considerable 

H 



98 



WRITERS OF THE 



reformation in many of the English monasteries. 
He died 1259. 

The works of Albert, called the Great, a 
Dominican friar, and afterwards, in 1260, 
bishop of Ratisbon,fill one-and-twenty volumes. 
They are chiefly on the physical sciences, but 
include a sort of encyclopedia of the learning 
of the age. " A man of wonderful erudition, 
to whom few things in theological science, and 
hardly any in secular learning, were unknown. 
On account of the extent and variety of his ac- 
quirements, sirnamed ' the Great' — -an honour 
conferred upon no other learned man during 
life." Albert of Ratisbon, like Roger Bacon, 
incurred among his contemporaries the suspi- 
cion of being a magician. Learning, in the 
restricted sense of the term, or the knowledge 
of books, though possessed by a comparatively 
small class of persons, was too frequent to ex- 
cite wonder or envy ; but science, or a know- 
ledge of nature, acquired, not from Aristotle, 
but from experiment, was so rare, that it sel- 
dom failed to engender both, and to occasion 
dangerous accusations of a correspondence with 
infernal agents. 

The revival of learning is usually reckoned 
to have commenced in the fifteenth century ; 
but in the fourteenth a decided advancement in 
almost every department of literature is per- 



MIDDLE AGES. 99 

ceptible. That a gross and degrading igno- 
rance was wearing away from the bulk of the 
community in several parts of Europe, and 
that the educated classes were acquiring a 
better taste and more expanded views, needs 
no other evidence than is presented in the 
works of Dante, of Petrarch, of Boccatio, of 
Chaucer, and of Gower, which were not merely 
produced in that period, but extensively read 
and admired. 

Fewer instances than those given above might 
suffice to prove, that at no part of that tract of 
time, which extends from the decline of learning 
in the sixth century to its revival in the fifteenth, 
was there a total extinction of the knowledge 
of ancient literature. This proof, it must be 
acknowledged, is much more complete in re- 
ference to the Greek than to the Latin authors ; 
it is also vastly more ample in relation to 
ecclesiastical and sacred, than to profane lite- 
rature. Of all the manuscripts extant executed 
in the middle ages, perhaps nineteen in twenty 
are of the former class. The continuance 
of the eastern empire till the middle of the 
fifteenth century, afforded an uninterrupted 
protection to Greek learning during those pe- 
riods when western Europe was laid waste by 
the Gothic nations. Yet even those devasta- 
tions were never universal in their extent or 
in their kind. If Italy were in ashes, the Bri- 



100 WRITERS OF THE 

tish islands were secure. And if cities were 
sacked and burned, and castles, palaces, and 
cathedrals pillaged and overthrown, hundreds 
of religious houses, in strong or secluded situ- 
ations, remained untouched; or if occasionally 
subjected to the violence of armies, or the 
exactions of conquerors, they more often lost 
their chests, their cups and their salvers, than 
their books. 

Learning and the sciences can flourish and 
advance only where there are the means of a 
wide and quick diffusion of the fruits of intel- 
lectual labour : but they may exist under the 
total absence of such means. This was the case 
in Europe during the middle ages. Knowledge 
rested with the few whom the inward fire of 
native genius constrained to pursue it : and 
these few were insulated from each other; 
often unknown beyond the walls within which 
they spent their lives ; and often secluded by 
their tastes even from their fellows of the same 
society. 

In every myriad of the human race, take the 
number where or when we may, there will be 
found one or two individuals born for thought ; 
and if the vocation of nature is not always 
stronger than every obstacle, it is, for the most 
part, strong enough to overcome such as are of 
ordinary magnitude. Those who are thus en- 
dowed with the appetite for knowledge, will 



MIDDLE AGES. 101 

certainly follow the impulse, if the means of 
its acquirement are directly presented to them 
in early life. Now these means were every 
where interspersed among the nations of Eu- 
rope during the middle ages hy the monastic 
system; and it may be questioned whether 
there were not then greater chances for draw- 
ing within the pale of learning the native mind 
of every district, than are afforded by the pre- 
sent constitution of society. The religious 
houses were so thickly scattered through every 
country, and the continual draught from the 
population for the maintenance of the numbers 
of their inmates * was so great, that they must 
have taken up many more than the gifted indi- 
viduals of every neighbourhood ; but such in- 
dividuals would almost certainly be included 
within the enlistment. For whenever a youth 
displayed a fondness for learning, nothing 
better could be done for him, whether he was 
the son of a peasant or a noble, than to devote 
him to the service of the church.-)- 

In the very darkest times, learning carried 



* A standing rule of the monastic establishments enjoined that 
the original number of each congregation should be maintained. 

f The monasteries usually contained schools for the youth of 
their vicinities. From these schools the superiors of the house 
had the opportunity of selecting any who gave promise of in- 
telligence. 



102 WRITERS OF THE 

with it a degree of reputation, and the heads 
of religious houses generally wished to de- 
corate their establishments with some particles 
of the honours of erudition, as well as to recom- 
mend them by the possession of relics ; and 
many were eagerly ambitious to enhance the 
literary celebrity of their communities. With 
these views it would be their policy to afford 
the necessary means and encouragement to 
those who seemed most likely to support the 
credit of the society.* 

Independently therefore of direct evidence, 
there would be reason to believe that most of 
the monasteries and conventual churches at all 
times included an individual or two whose 
tastes led him to devote his life to study, and 
who would become the sedulous guardian and 
conservator of the books of the house, direct- 
ing the labours of the less intelligent brethren 



* " The education of a monk, at least in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, consisted of church music and the primary sciences, gram- 
mar, logic, and philosophy — obviously that of Aristotle. Some 
French and Latin must also have been included ; for these were 
the languages the monks were enjoined to speak on public occa- 
sions. They were afterwards sent to Oxford or Paris to learn 
theology. Such indeed was the encouragement held out to lite- 
rature, that in a provincial chapter of abbots and priors of the 
Benedictine order, held at Northampton A.D. 1343, men of let- 
ters and masters of arts were invited to become monks, by a pro- 
mise of exemption from all daily services." — Fosbrooke. 



MIDDLE AGES. 



103 



in the work of transcribing such as were falling 
into decay. 

In the estimation of minds ruled by the love 
of books, even if capable of discriminating the 
precious from the worthless — the worthless, by 
a principle of association, partakes, to a large 
degree, of the respect that belongs in reason 
only to what is intrinsically valuable. A book, 
whatever be its subject or its merits, is viewed 
with a fond covetousness by those whose pas- 
sion it is to love books. This feeling must have 
been strong indeed, in times when books were 
hardly to be purchased, and when their ideal 
value included a recollection of the toil of 
transcription. The spirit of the ruling super- 
stition, which taught the attachment of an in- 
calculable importance to objects intrinsically 
worthless, must also have favoured an undis- 
tinguishing reverence for books. We need not 
then be surprised to find that works of all 
classes, though altogether unsuited to the 
taste of the times, were reproduced from age 
to age by the monkish copyists. 

While, therefore, all taste for instruction 
disappeared from the face of society; while 
kings and nobles were often as ignorant as 
artisans and peasants ; while even the great 
body of the clergy retained only some tattered 
shreds of learning, the productions of brighter 
ages were hoarded and perpetuated, and were 



104 



REVIVAL OF 



accessible to the few whose intellectual ardour 
carried them beyond the standard of their 
times. 



More than half a century before the taking 
of Constantinople by the Turks, the learned 
men of that city, apprehensive of the approach- 
ing fall of the empire, began to emigrate into 
Italy, where they opened schools, and became 
the preceptors of princes and the guides of the 
public taste, which they directed towards the 
study of the classic writers of Greece and 
Rome. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, 
filled the Italian cities with these learned 
strangers. 

The Italians needed only to receive this 
kind of direction, and the means of study ; for 
they had for some time been placed under 
those peculiar circumstances, which have ever 
proved the most favourable to the advance- 
ment of the human mind. A number of inde- 
pendent states were crowded upon a narrow 
space, throughout which the same language, 
yet diversified by dialects, was spoken. The 
energy, the rivalry, the munificence that ac- 
company commerce, kept the whole mass of 



LEARNING. 105 

society in movement ; while the influence of a 
superstition, which sought to recommend itself 
by every embellishment that the genius of man 
can devise or execute, overruled the debasing 
tendency of successful trade, and directed the 
ambition of princely merchants towards ob- 
jects more noble and intellectual than wealth 
usually selects as the means of distinc- 
tion. 

The formation of libraries, suggested or 
favoured by the importation of manuscripts 
from Constantinople, was the means not only 
of making more widely known the works of the 
Greek authors, which had never fallen into 
oblivion, but of prompting those researches 
which issued in the recovery of the Latin 
writers, many of whom had long been forgot- 
ten. The appetite for books being quickened, 
neither cost nor labour were spared in their ac- 
cumulation ; and learned men were despatched 
in all directions throughout Europe, western 
Asia, and Africa, to collect manuscripts. In 
the course of a few years, most of the authors 
now known were brought together in the 
libraries of Rome, Naples, Venice, Florence, 
Milan, Vienna, and Paris, where they were laid 
open to those who were best qualified to give 
them to the world. 

Thus aided by the munificence and zeal of 
princes and popes, the scholars of the fifteenth 



106 REVIVAL OF 

century sedulously applied themselves to the 
discovery, restoration and publication of the 
remains of Greek and Roman literature, and in 
the course of sixty or eighty years most of the 
works now known were committed to the press. 
Since that time some few discoveries have 
been made ; but the principal improvements 
in classic literature of later date have consisted 
in the emendation of the text of ancient au- 
thors by a more extensive collation of manu- 
scripts than the first editors possessed the 
means of instituting. This restoration of the 
remains of ancient works to their pristine in- 
tegrity has not been effected like that of a dila- 
pidated building or a mutilated statue, by the 
addition of new materials in an imagined con- 
formity with the plan and taste of the original 
work, but by the industrious collection and re- 
placement of the very particles of which it at 
first consisted. 

The invention of printing, which virtually 
exempts books from the operation of the law 
that subjects all things mundane to the decays 
of time, has greatly promoted also the process 
of their renovation ; for by giving to the issue 
of an edition of a standard work a degree of im- 
portance several hundred times greater than 
what belonged to the transcription of a single 
copy, it has called for the employment of a 
proportionately larger amount of learning, 



LEARNING. 10J 

diligence, and caution in the work of revision ; 
and then, by enabling each successive editor 
to avail himself of the labours of all his pre- 
decessors, the advantages belonging to the 
concentration of many minds upon the same 
subject have been secured. 

Since the fifteenth century therefore, the 
lapse of time, instead of gradually impairing 
and corrupting the literary remains of anti- 
quity, has incessantly contributed to their 
renovation. Indeed it may be affirmed that, 
in relation to the amount, exactitude, and cer- 
tainty of our knowledge, we are not receding 
from remote ages, but constantly approaching 
towards them. In a thousand instances what 
was unknown, or doubtful, or imperfect, or 
corrupted, at the commencement of the fifteenth 
century, is ascertained, restored, and com- 
pleted in the nineteenth. The history and the 
literature of Greece and Rome, long inhumed 
in the monasteries, were, at the period of their 
re-appearance, liable to uncertainties and to 
suspicions which not all the learning and in- 
dustry of that vigorous age were able to dis- 
pel. But the learning and industry of the 
four centuries that have since elapsed, con- 
stantly directed towards the same objects, and 
constantly accumulating a various mass of 
evidence, have left very few questions of 
literary antiquity open to controversy. 



108 



REVIVAL OF 



Having then, by the mention of some lead- 
ing* facts, traced the remains of ancient litera- 
ture to the time when they passed to the 
press, their history is no longer obscure or 
questionable ; nor are they any more liable to 
the hazards of extinction from political changes 
or from the decline of learning in this or that 
country ; for unless a universal devastation 
should take its course at once over every re- 
gion of the civilized world, the body of litera- 
ture now extant can neither perish nor suffer 
corruption. A temple, a statue, a picture, or 
a gem is but one, and however durable may 
be the material, it continually decays and 
is always destructible. The touch of the 
sculptor moulders from the chiselled sur- 
face, and the time will come when every 
monument of his genius shall have crumbled 
in the dust, and when his fame, lost from the 
marble, shall live only in the works of the 
poets and historians who were his contem- 
poraries. 

Thus it is that the written records of distant 
ages, with the knowledge of which the intel- 
lectual, moral, and political well-being of man- 
kind is . inseparably connected, are secured 
from extinction by a mode of conservation 
less liable to extensive hazards than any other 
that can be imagined. If man is cut off from 
the knowledge of the past, he becomes indif- 



LEARNING. 



109 



ferent to the future, and sinks into the rude- 
ness and ferocity of the sensual life. The 
redundant amplitude, therefore, of the means 
by which this knowledge is preserved only 
bears a due proportion to the importance of 
the consequences that depend upon its per- 
petuation. 



CHAPTER IV. 



METHODS OF ASCERTAINING THE CREDIBILITY OP 
ANCIENT HISTORICAL WORKS. 

The facts referred to in the preceding chap- 
ters belong in common to ancient books of all 
classes, and they tend to prove that the works 
of the Greek and Roman writers — poets, 
dramatists, philosophers, critics, and histo- 
rians, which issued from the press in the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries may, by various 
and independent evidence, be traced up to the 
age in which they are commonly supposed to 
have been written. 

Our attention is now to be confined to 
those ancient works which are professedly 
historical, and our object will be to ascertain 
on what grounds, and with what limitations, 
such works deserve our confidence as narra- 
tives of facts. 

The same mode of inquiry which common 
sense suggests on the most ordinary occa- 



CREDIBILITY OF HISTORICAL WORKS. Ill 

sions, when we are called upon to estimate 
the value of testimony, is applicable to all 
cases of the like nature. Nor can the impor- 
tance of the consequences that maybe involved 
in the issue of the investigation render it in- 
valid or unsatisfactory. 

In some lesser particulars the modes of 
estimating oral and written testimony must 
differ ; but in substance the heads of inquiry 
will be the same. In the case with which we 
have now to do — the credibility of the testimony 
of the ancient historians, it is natural to con- 
sider the following points : — 

1. The moral and intellectual character and 
qualifications of the writers ; 

2. The means of information they possessed ; 

3. The time and circumstances of the first 
publication of the work ; 

4. The exceptions it may be necessary to 
make to their testimony on particular points, 
arising either from the peculiar nature of the 
facts affirmed, or the apparent influence of 
prejudice — personal or national; and, 

5. The agreement of the narratives in ques- 
tion with evidence derived from other and 
independent sources. 

In judging then of the authenticity of an 
historical work we have, in the first place, 
to form an estimate of the writer's moral and 
intellectual character and qualifications. 



112 CREDIBILITY OF 

If the personal integrity of an historian has 
happened to be put to the proof by well known 
and remarkable events, in which he was con- 
cerned, the reader whose own character qua- 
lifies him to feel the force of such proof will 
ask for no better ground of confidence ; for 
such errors in matters of fact as an honest 
historian may be liable to, will seldom be of 
much importance. But even if no such proof 
of a writer's personal integrity exists—if the 
circumstances of his life are altogether un- 
known, almost every writer leaves in his 
works sufficient indications of his moral dis- 
positions. The characteristics of honesty are 
distinct and conspicuous enough to secure the 
confidence of all candid minds ; nor can an 
instance be adduced in which they have been 
so successfully counterfeited as to stand the 
test of time. An ill or perverse intention as 
certainly betrays itself in writing as in personal 
behaviour. Yet this sort of evidence, though 
it will be more satisfactory than any other to 
one reader, >vill be unperceived by another; 
for cold, feeble, and suspicious minds are des- 
titute of the sympathies to which it appeals. 

If the proofs of integrity and veracity in an 
historian are wanting, or are thought insuffi- 
cient, we must descend to the evidence which 
his works afford relative to his intellectual 
qualifications ; and these may be such as fully 



HISTORICAL WORKS. 113 

to warrant a general confidence in his pre- 
ference of truth to falsehood. The strongest 
and the clearest minds attach themselves to 
truth by an instinctive movement. To acquire 
the knowledge of facts is their characteristic 
passion ; — -to promulgate this knowledge is 
the function they feel themselves born to fulfil. 
Nor can it happen that the falsification of 
facts (in which neither personal interests nor 
prejudices are involved) should present any 
adequate inducement to writers whose powers 
of narration enable them to command more 
attention in the direct paths of truth and 
reality than they could hope to gain in the 
regions of fiction. Every gifted mind has its 
sphere ;— and there is a native talent for his- 
tory, as well as a genius for poetry ; and he 
who possesses eminently the former will as 
certainly make himself conversant with reali- 
ties, as he who may boast the latter will live 
among the creations of fancy. 

If therefore an historical work displays a 
full vigour of intellect, good sense, elevation 
of sentiment, and the specific talent for narra- 
tion, these qualities may safely be held as 
affording a strong presumptive proof of the 
author's veracity, even though there are no di- 
rect means of ascertaining his moral integrity. 
The writers who occupy the first rank among 
the ancient historians possess, therefore, of 



114 QUALIFICATIONS OF HISTORIANS. 

course, this presumptive proof of veracity ; 
for the reputation they have so long enjoyed 
is attributable quite as much to the excellen- 
cies of their style, and to their talent for narra- 
tion, as to the interest or importance of the 
mere story that forms the subject of their 
works. These intrinsic merits contain, then, a 
tacit guarantee for the authenticity of the 
works they adorn. 

On this ground, the good sense, simplicity, 
ease, and accuracy of Herodotus— the stern 
vigour, elevation, and dignity of Thucydides, 
the majesty of Livy, and the philosophic 
terseness of Tacitus, not only win the admira- 
tion of the reader, but, in different degrees, 
invite or demand his confidence. 

There are also qualities of style which, 
though they may not entitle an author to a 
place in the first rank of writers, must secure 
for him the highest regard as an authentic 
historian. Indeed in this department of 
literature, those less brilliant and less attrac- 
tive qualities which give security for an his- 
torian's diligence, accuracy, and impartiality, 
may well be accepted in place of mere genius, 
or eloquence, or powers of description. There 
is a specific taste for details, a passion for la- 
borious researches, a superstitious regard to 
exactness, an indefatigable industry, which, 
though they may tire the reader who seeks 



QUALIFICATIONS OF HISTORIANS. 115 

only for amusement, will secure the confidence 
and attention of every intelligent student of 
history. Thus, for example, the assiduity of 
Diodorus the Sicilian, the accuracy and good 
sense of Polybius, and the minuteness and am- 
plification of Dionysius the Halicarnassian, give 
to their works a substantial value which com- 
pensates for the want of shining excellencies. 

In those historical works which have neces- 
sarily been compiled from various documents, 
a sound judgment in the selection of materials 
must be considered as the principal merit of 
an author. In this quality some of the ancient 
historians were certainly deficient ; and yet it 
must be added that, to this very want of 
judgment we are indebted for the knowledge 
of innumerable particulars, in themselves cu- 
rious, or perhaps important, which modern 
notions of method, consistency, and propriety, 
would have retrenched. 

Although, to a certain extent, the genius or 
talent of an historian may be held to vouch for 
his veracity, yet it is also true that a writer 
may possess a sort of genius which must bring 
his fidelity under suspicion. If, for example, 
he continually indulges his taste for scenes of 
splendour, or terror, or extraordinary action, 
or loves to exhibit images of magnanimity or 
wisdom, surpassing the ordinary reach of hu- 
man nature; if his personages are heroes, or 



116 MEANS OF INFORMATION. 

if he seems pleased to find occasions on which 
to display his command of the nervous elo- 
quence of vituperation, we may well conclude 
that he has too much genius to be simply exact 
or calmly just. 

The consideration of personal and national 
prejudices enters, of course, into the estimate 
that is formed of an historian's moral and in- 
tellectual character. But these will be best 
adverted to when we come to mention the ex- 
ceptions which it is necessary to make against 
the evidence of historians on particular points. 



II. 



THE MEANS OF INFORMATION POSSESSED BY THE 
ANCIENT HISTORIANS. 

The same kind of confidence that is due to 
an historian who narrates events in which he 
was personally concerned, cannot be claimed 
by one who compiles the history of remote 
times from such materials as he can collect : 
for in the former case, if we are assured of the 
writer's veracity and competency, there re- 
mains no room for reasonable doubt, at least 
in reference to those principal facts of the 
story for the truth of which his character is 
pledged. But in the other case, though we 



MEANS OF INFORMATION. 117 

may think well both of the writer's veracity 
and judgment, the confidence we afford him 
must still be conditional, and will be measured 
by the opinion we form of the validity of his 
authorities. 

The entire mass of ancient history may 
therefore be considered as consisting of two 
kinds, namely, the original and the compiled. 
In the first class may be comprehended, not 
merely those narratives that are strictly per- 
sonal, such for instance as the history of the 
retreat of the 10,000 Greeks, by Xenophon, or 
the Commentaries of Caesar, which describe 
actions wherein the author was immediately 
concerned ; but those also which relate to the 
events of the author's own times and country, 
and concerning which he had the most direct 
and unquestionable means of becoming accu- 
rately informed. Such are the history of the 
Peloponnesian war by Thucydides, the history 
of the Cataline conspiracy by Sallust, the 
histories and annals of Tacitus, the history of 
the reign of Justinian by Procopius, or that of 
her father's reign by Anna Comnena. 

The credibility of historical works of this 
class must, obviously, be determined chiefly 
upon the grounds mentioned in the preceding 
section, that is to say, from the appearances of 
integrity, impartiality, and good sense, which 
the work exhibits. Every reader of Thucy- 



118 MEANS OF INFORMATION. 

dides, for example, feels that he may rely with 
full confidence upon the general authenticity 
of the narrative; — the extreme caution and 
unwearied assiduity of the author in ascer- 
taining the truth of whatever he affirms, his 
exactness in minute circumstances, his eminent 
good sense and fairness, and the dignity of his 
manner, all concur to stamp upon the work 
the seal of truth. In all original histories the 
truth of the story and the veracity of the 
writer are inseparably linked together : — both 
must be admitted or both denied. 

But by far the greater part of all extant 
history belongs to the second class : yet among 
works that must rank merely as compilations, 
some wide distinctions are to be observed, for 
there are a few of this kind of which the au- 
thenticity is little, if at aH* inferior to that of 
the best original histories ; while many are, in 
the ordinary sense of the term, compilations, 
and deserve only a qualified confidence. In re- 
gard to the nature and probable value of their 
authorities each historian, and indeed almost 
every separate portion of the works of each, 
must be estimated apart. Two or three 
examples will be sufficient to show both the 
necessity and the mode of exercising this 
discrimination. 

The nine books of Herodotus afford instances 
of every degree of validity in regard to the 



MEANS OF INFORMATION. 119 

probable value of the materials employed by 
the author. The reader who in his simplicity 
peruses that work throughout with an equal 
faith will be in danger of having his indis- 
criminate confidence suddenly converted into 
undistinguishing scepticism, by discovering the 
slight authority upon which some few portions 
of it are founded. 

Diodorus the Sicilian, is reported to have 
employed thirty years in preparing materials 
for his universal history. Like Herodotus, 
he visited the countries of which he speaks — 
consulting public records — inspecting monu- 
ments — conversing with the learned, and 
collecting books. And his work exhibits the 
proofs of this assiduity ; but yet when his 
statements are compared with those of other 
writers, better informed on particular subjects, 
it becomes apparent that he exercised too 
little caution in the selection of his authorities ; 
and that therefore the discrimination of the 
reader must supply the want of judgment in 
the writer. 

The universal history of Trogus Pompeius, 
which is extant only in the abridgement made 
by Justin, seems to have been compiled on a 
plan somewhat similar to that of the work last 
mentioned. It is evident that the author 
collected his materials with considerable dili- 
gence and judgment; but yet, that in what 



120 MEANS OP INFORMATION. 

relates to remote nations he was often egre- 
giously misinformed: a striking instance of 
this kind is furnished in the account he 
gives of the history and religion of the Jews.* 
It is evident that the author — whether Trogus 
or Justin, received his information, not from 
the source to which he ought to have referred — 
the Jewish records ; — nor even from individuals 
of that nation ; but from some of the neigh- 
bouring people of Asia or of Africa. The 
account given by Tacitus -f of the same people 
is little more just than that of Trogus. If 
these instances were to be taken as specimens 
of the accuracy of the ancient historians in all 
similar cases, their descriptions of remote 
nations must be held as of very little value. 
But there seems reason to believe that the 
history and institutions of the Jews were less 
known and more misrepresented than those of 
any other people bordering upon the Medi- 
terranean. 

Abundant evidence proves that from the very 
earliest ages, and in almost all countries, there 
were persons employed and authorized by 
governments to digest the current history of 
the state. These annals contained, of course, 
the names of kings, and the records of their 
acts and exploits, their decrees and wars. 

* Book xxxvh cap. 2. f Hist. Book v. 



MEANS OF INFORMATION. 121 

Each city, as well as the capitals of empires, 
had its archives ; and these public documents 
appear to have suggested the idea of a more 
comprehensive form of history. They were 
certainly consulted by those who, in later 
times, undertook the composition of historical 
works : by these means there was imparted to 
such works more of authenticity and exactness 
than may be generally supposed. Herodotus, 
Thucydides, Diodorus, Pausanias, Strabo, Dio- 
nysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Arrian, 
Dion Cassius, and others, evidently availed 
themselves with all possible diligence of such 
public records. 

The ancient historians conversed extensively 
with official persons, wherever they travelled ; 
and it must be granted they were often too 
ready to accept these oral communications as 
authentic. This is especially to be observed 
in reference to all those accounts that were 
confessedly, or that seem to have been received 
from priests ; for that class of persons, accus- 
tomed to think truth their enemy, and decep- 
tion their business, would have thought them- 
selves betraying the interests of their order in 
furnishing simple facts to an inquirer. 

Every city of the ancient world, where civi- 
lization had made any progress, was crowded 
with columns, statues, busts, monuments, in- 
scriptions, by which every memorable event, 



122 MEANS OF INFORMATION. 

and every illustrious personage, was perpe- 
tually presented to the regards of the people, 
and retained in their recollection. To visit a 
city, to pace its public ways, to enter its tem- 
ples and its halls, was to peruse its history. 
The meanest citizen, even a child, could con- 
duct the inquisitive stranger through the 
streets, and explain to him these memorials of 
the past. It is difficult for us to form an ade- 
quate notion of the extent to which the history 
of each people was familiarized to them by 
these means, or how much the living conversed 
with the dead, and identified themselves with 
whatever was heroic or wise in preceding times. 
These public monuments, when collated with 
the public records, and explained by the public 
voice, furnished historians with the most abun- 
dant materials ; and so great was the import- 
ance attached to them, that there are instances 
in which historians made long journeys for the 
express purpose of examining the sculptures of 
a city, whose history they had occasion inci- 
dentally to mention. 

What was most wanting to give a higher 
value, in point of authenticity, to the materials 
so diligently collected by the ancient historians 
was, that general diffusion of information 
among nations, which would have subjected 
the fables and pretensions of each people to 
the animadversion of others, and have allowed 



MEANS OF INFORMATION. 



123 



a more ready and complete collation of dis- 
cordant evidence on the same points. The 
Greeks were little acquainted with the lan- 
guages of the surrounding nations, and egre- 
giously ignorant of facts in which they were 
not immediately concerned. If the literature 
of the Asiatic nations had been familiarly cur- 
rent in Greece, and that of Greece in Asia, 
both would have been purged of many errors 
and frivolities ; and something more of that 
consistency, expansion, and good sense im- 
parted on both sides, which were acquired by 
the Roman writers in consequence of their 
acquaintance with the literature of Greece. 
In the department of history, especially, such 
an interchange of light would have enhanced 
the value, as well as augmented the amount 
of knowledge. Knowledge, like the vital 
fluid, corrupts whenever it ceases freely to 
circulate. 

On this ground, the moderns have incompa- 
rably the advantage over the ancients ; and if 
party interests and political prejudices act 
more forcibly in modern times, the means of 
correction are also vastly more efficient. The 
European nations have, on important subjects, 
a common literature — all things are known by 
all. National misrepresentations are quickly 
noticed and chastised. The same corrective 
process is actively carried on in each commit- 



124 TIME OF PUBLICATION. 

nity ; and if particular falsifications abound, 
the ultimate probabilities of the prevalence of 
truth are still more abundant. 



III. 



THE TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE FIRST 
PUBLICATION OF HISTORICAL WORKS. 

To ascertain the antiquity of historical works 
is peculiarly important, because when that is 
proved, we obtain, in most instances, a conclu- 
sive proof of the general truth of the narrative. 
For if a history was published, and widely cir- 
culated, and generally admitted to be authentic 
in the very age when the principal facts to 
which it relates were matters of universal 
notoriety, when most of the lesser circum- 
stances were perfectly known by many of the 
author's contemporaries, and when some of 
his contemporaries were personally inter- 
ested in the story, we have the best reasons 
for confiding in the truth and accuracy of the 
history. 

No pretended history, published under the 
circumstances above named, which was alto- 
gether untrue in its main particulars, or grossly 
incorrect in its details, could, by any accident, 
or any endeavours, gain general and lasting re- 



TIME OP PUBLICATION. 



125 



putation as an authentic work. No such book 
could endure and survive the scrutiny of con- 
temporary antagonists ; no such book could 
maintain its reputation through the next age, 
when the means of ascertaining the truth of the 
narrative were still extant, and when the in- 
terests and prejudices of the moment had sub- 
sided. 

As in relation to the sources of information 
possessed by historians, it was seen that his- 
torical works should be divided into two 
classes, the original, and the derived; so a 
similar, but not exactly an identical division 
must be made in relation to the circumstances 
under which such books were published. In 
the first class are to be included those histories 
of the truth of which the author's contempora- 
ries, in general, were competent judges ; and 
in the second, such, as being drawn from rare, 
or recondite, or scattered materials, and relat- 
ing to events remote in time or place, could 
not be open to the test of public opinion, and 
could be estimated only by a few learned indi- 
viduals. 

Histories of the first kind may be termed 
popular ; those of the second, learned. It is evi- 
dent that learned histories, though on different 
grounds, may deserve a high degree of con- 
fidence on the score of authenticity and accu- 
racy ; and, indeed, for impartiality and com- 



126 TIME OP PUBLICATION. 

prehensive information, and exactness in 
details, they may greatly surpass any of the 
original narratives from which they were com- 
piled. For a later historian, if industrious, 
judicious, and unprejudiced, may so collect 
and collate the various mass of subsidiary tes- 
timonies bearing upon particular facts, as shall 
give much more of consistency to his narra- 
tive than belongs to any earlier work on the 
same subject. 

But the direct proof of authenticity belongs 
exclusively to popular histories. A work of this 
class is, essentially, a condensation of the com- 
mon knowledge of a nation or community ; it 
is the universal testimony, arranged and com- 
pacted by one who aims to found his personal 
reputation as a writer upon the consent of his 
contemporaries. We pass through the crowded 
ways of a metropolis, and hear, in substance, 
the same account of some recent and public 
transaction from a thousand lips, and from op- 
posing parties ; or we read a narrative of this 
event drawn up by a contemporary writer, 
whose veracity is tacitly or explicitly assented 
to by the same parties. The validity of the 
evidence is alike in both cases ; only that for 
accuracy and consistency the accepted written 
narrative will be found to surpass the oral tes- 
timony. 

Viewed with reference to the distinction 



TIME OF PUBLICATION. 12/ 

above mentioned, the latter books of Herodotus 
may be included in the class of popular histo- 
ries, and deserve therefore the confidence due 
to a narrative generally accepted as true by 
those who were well acquainted with the facts 
it describes, and many of whom were person- 
ally interested in the story. The history of the 
Peloponnesian war has a still higher claim to 
unimpeachable authenticity, inasmuch as the 
facts were more recent at the time of the pub- 
lication of the work ; and because, also, the 
strongest sentiments of national rivalry and 
civil discord were in activity and readiness to 
crush, on the instant, any attempted misrepre- 
sentation. The author's hope that his work 
should descend to posterity, rested directly 
upon such an adherence to truth, as should 
remove from all parties the opportunity of 
giving any plausibility to a charge of falsifica- 
tion. 

Xenophon's history of Greece possesses, in 
part, a claim to credibility on the same ground. 
The Cyropsedia, on the contrary, is altogether 
destitute of authentication from this source ; 
for the Greeks, at the time when the work was 
published, were far from being generally com- 
petent to judge of the truth of the story. The 
same author's account of the expedition of 
Cyrus, may, in this respect, take a middle place 
between the two above named works. It was 



128 TIME OF PUBLICATION. 

not composed, as there is reason to believe, till 
many years after the writer's return from 
Asia ; and though the general facts were still 
matters of notoriety, the particulars could 
not then be universally recollected, especially 
as the scene of these transactions was remote 
from Greece. 

The works of Sallust, of Caesar, of Tacitus, 
of Suetonius, of Polybius, claim, in whole or in 
part, the authority of popular histories, gene- 
rally accredited as authentic by those who 
were well acquainted with the facts they con- 
tain. 

But, excepting smaller portions, or parti- 
cular facts, the works of Diodorus, of Diony- 
sius the Halicarnassian, of Nepos, of iElian, of 
Paterculus, of Curtius, of Plutarch, of Arrian, 
of Appian, of Pausanius, and many others, are 
to be regarded only as learned compilations, 
whose claim to authenticity is of an indirect 
kind. 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS* 129 



IV. 



EXCEPTIONS NECESSARY TO BE MADE AGAINST 
THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORIANS ON PARTICULAR 
POINTS, ARISING EITHER FROM THE PECULIAR 
NATURE OF THE FACTS AFFIRMED, OR FROM THE 
APPARENT INFLUENCE OF PREJUDICE, PERSONAL 
OR NATIONAL. 

From the nature of the case the authenticity 
of an historical work can be affirmed only in- 
definitely, and must be understood to be liable 
to particular exceptions. Such exceptions may 
be made without at all impeaching the character 
of the writer for veracity, or even general ac- 
curacy. For he may have been imposed upon 
in particular instances by his informants ; he 
may have reported things currently believed in 
his time, without thinking himself pledged 
personally for their truth ; he may not have 
thought himself called upon as an historian to 
discuss questions which might more properly 
be treated by philosophers ; or he may have 
been simply negligent, here and there, in the 
course of a voluminous work. Yet apologies 
of this sort must, as it is evident, be confined 
to cases of an incidental kind, and to a writer's 
account of facts not immediately known to him- 
self. For in a narrative of events, of which 

K 



130 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

the writer professes himself to have had a per-r 
sonal knowledge, we must either admit his 
veracity, and with it the truth of the facts, or 
deny both. 

The chief point to be considered, when the 
affirmation of an historian on a particular point 
is doubted, is the naturae of the fact in question. 

1. If, for example, it be a question of num- 
bers, measures, or dates, we have always to 
remember, as before remarked, that a specific 
and peculiar uncertainty attaches to these mat- 
ters in ancient authors, owing to the method 
of notation by letters, which were easily mis- 
taken one for another. The numbers of which 
armies were composed — the numbers of the 
slain in battle — the population of cities — the 
revenues of states — the distances of places — 
the weight or measure of bodies, and computa- 
tions of time, must, therefore, always be held 
open to question ; and that without in the least 
derogating from the credit of the work in which 
they occur. Besides the probable corruption 
of copies in such instances, it is to be remem- 
bered that many of the particulars above- 
named, are in themselves liable to more uncer- 
tainty or mistake than other facts, so that 
scarcely any degree of diligence and care on 
the part of an historian, will entirely secure 
him from errors on such points. 

2. Geographical details, descriptions of the 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 131 

objects of natural history, or accounts of phy- 
sical phenomena, must also generally be con- 
sidered as open to uncertainty, on account of 
the imperfect information upon these subjects 
which was possessed by the ancients. Yet the 
names and relative distances of places in all the 
countries that border upon the Mediterranean 
Sea, as reported by ancient geographers and 
historians, have been to so great an extent 
authenticated by the researches of modern 
scholars, that apparent inconsistencies should 
not hastily be assumed as proofs of ignorance. 
But whatever relates to countries remote from 
Greece and Italy, or beyond the bounds of the 
Persian, Macedonian, Carthagenian, and Ro- 
man empires, must of course be received with 
some hesitation. Many of these descriptions of 
remote countries, when compared with the 
accounts of modern travellers, afford at once 
amusing instances of the usual processes of 
exaggeration, and striking attestations of the 
substantial authenticity of the works in which 
they occur. For the coincidence of these 
accounts, in many respects, with the facts as 
now fully known, prove that the historian had 
actually conversed with natives of those coun- 
tries, or with travellers ; while the distortion 
of the picture is precisely what might be 
expected from the channels through which the 
information was derived. 



132 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

3. The descriptions so frequently to be met 
with in ancient writers, of monstrous men or 
animals — griffins — dragons — hydras— pygmies 
— giants ; or of trees bearing golden fruit, of 
fountains flowing with perfumes, or even with 
the precious metals, &c. may, in most cases, 
be now traced to actual facts, which, passing 
to the writer through the medium of ignorant, 
fanciful, or interested reporters, assumed the 
characteristic extravagance of fables. On oc- 
casions of this kind it is much more becoming 
to an intelligent student of history to inquire 
among the stores of modern science for the 
probable origin of such accounts, than to pass 
them by with the sneer of indolent scepticism. 
Some writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries took so much offence at some passages 
of this kind in the history of Herodotus, as to 
treat the entire work of that industrious and 
generally accurate writer with contempt, as if 
it were little better than a collection of fables. 
This rash censure now falls back upon them- 
selves ; for modern travellers, in visiting the 
countries elescribed by the father of history, 
have frequent occasion to notice the correctness 
of his statements, or their substantial truth, 
even in those relations which seem the most 
open to suspicion. 

4. In the description of natural phenomena, 
meteors, tempests, eruptions of volcanoes, 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 133 

earthquakes, eclipses, &c. all that is needed is 
to remove from the narrative of the historian 
those connective circumstances, or those de- 
corative phrases, by which such occurrences 
were accommodated to the political events of 
the moment, at the suggestion of an abject 
and presumptuous superstition. 

And here we must take occasion to notice a 
remarkable difference observable between the 
Jewish writers and those of other nations, in 
the nature of the marvellous or supernatural 
facts they describe. The marvellous events 
reported by the Greek and Roman authors may, 
with few exceptions, be classed under two 
heads ; namely, allegorical and poetical combi- 
nations, so obviously fabulous, as to ask for no 
credence, and to demand no scrutiny; or mere 
exaggerations, distortions, or misapplications 
of natural objects or phenomena. But the 
Jewish historians and poets do not describe as 
actually existing any such allegorical mon- 
sters ; and their descriptions of real animals 
are either simply exact, or evidently poetical, 
(like those in the book of Job) but not fabulous. 
They do not give a supernatural colouring to 
ordinary phenomena, or convert plain facts 
into prodigies. The supernatural events they 
record, as matters of history, are such devia- 
tions from the standing order of natural causes 
and effects, as leave no alternative between a 



134 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

denial of the veracity of the writers, or a sub- 
mission to their affirmation of divine agency. 

The freedom of the Jewish historians, poets, 
and prophets, from those admixtures of the 
marvellous with which all other ancient writers 
abound, is one of the most remarkable of their 
characteristics. Their descriptions of human 
nature are neither heroical nor fantastic ; their 
narratives of human affairs are of the simplest 
complexion, and strictly consistent with the 
4mown modes of the time and country. Nor is 
our assent taxed on any occasion, except when 
an event is recorded which, unless it had 
actually taken place, could not have been 
affirmed by any but profligate impostors. 

But to return. Besides those prodigies met 
with in the profane historians which only re- 
quire to be freed from the exaggerations that 
ignorance, poetry, or superstition may have 
added to plain matters of fact, there are other 
accounts which cannot satisfactorily be so ex- 
plained, and which call for the exercise of some 
discrimination. They are such as must be 
either altogether false, or else imply, in some 
sense, a supernatural agency. Of the former 
kind may well be reckoned all, or almost all, 
those alleged supernatural occurrences which 
were pretty plainly contrived to give credit to 
the established superstition, or to subserve the 
present designs of statesmen or commanders, 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 135 

and which, in most cases, rested exclusively 
upon the testimony of priests. But on the 
other hand, there are recorded in the pages of 
profane history some few facts apparently 
ahove the range of natural causes, which 
cannot be rejected as untrue, without doing 
violence to the soundest principles of evidence, 
and which will not be treated with uninquisitive 
contempt, except by a purblind scepticism, 
more nearly allied to credulity than to true 
philosophy. These peculiar cases demand a 
more full and particular consideration than it 
is compatible with the design of this volume to 
bestow upon them. 

5. The political habits and tastes of the 
Greeks and Romans, induced their historians 
to supply the personages of their story with 
formal speeches on all remarkable occasions ; 
for oratory was the spring and life of every 
political movement; and as the machine of 
government could not circulate without ha- 
rangues, history must not seem to omit them. 
But there is little reason to believe that au- 
thentic reports of public speeches were often 
in the possession of historians. Indeed, these 
portions of the history are generally so much 
in the manner of the author, as to leave the 
reader in no doubt to whom to attribute them. 
Yet it may be imagined that, on some memor- 
able occasions, the very words of a short 



136 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

speech, or the purport of an oration, were 
remembered and recorded, and so were worked 
into the speech framed by the historian. 

A compliance with the taste of the times 
seems also to have led some writers to divert 
the attention of their readers, and to relieve 
for a moment the burden of the narrative by 
introducing digressions, often of a trivial kind, 
which, though not announced as mere embel- 
lishments, and perhaps not purely fictitious, 
are evidently not intended to claim an equal 
degree of confidence with the main circum- 
stances of the narrative. 

6. The secret motives of public men, or the 
hidden causes of important events, are not the 
proper subjects of history, which is concerned 
only with such facts as may be fairly known. 
The disquisitions of an historian on such topics 
are therefore to be excepted from his work ; 
when he so forsakes his function, he must be 
forsaken by his reader; his errors on such 
points impeach not his veracity, but his judg- 
ment. 

7. Very few important facts, such as form 
the proper subjects of history, rest exclusively 
upon the testimony of a single historian, or 
are incapable of being directly or remotely 
confirmed by some kind of coincident evidence. 
Whenever therefore a question arises relative 
to the truth of a particular statement, recourse 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 137 

must be had to the testimony of contemporary 
writers, or to the evidence of existing monu- 
ments. But even if all such means of corro- 
boration should fail, if we meet only with a 
perplexing silence, where we expect to find 
confirmation, we are by no means justified in 
rejecting the unsupported testimony, merely 
on the ground of this want of correlative sup- 
port. Innumerable instances may be adduced 
of the most extraordinary silence of historians 
relative to facts with which they must have 
been acquainted, and which seemed to lie 
directly in the course of their narrative. Many 
important circumstances are mentioned by no 
ancient writer, though unquestionably esta- 
blished by the evidence of existing inscrip- 
tions, coins, statues, or buildings. There are 
also facts mentioned only by one historian 
which happen to be attested by an incidental 
coincidence with some relic of antiquity lately 
brought to light ; if this relic had remained in 
its long obscurity, such facts might (we see 
with how little reason) have been disputed. 

Nothing can be more fallacious than an in- 
ference drawn from the silence of historians 
relative to particular facts. For a full, com- 
prehensive, and, if the phrase may be used, a 
business-like method of writing history, in which 
nothing important, nothing which the well- 
informed reader will look for, must be omitted, 



138 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

is the produce of modern improvements in 
thinking and writing. The general diffusion 
of knowledge, and the instant activity of cri- 
ticism, occasion a much higher demand in 
matters of information to be made upon writers 
than was thought of in ancient times. A full 
and exact communication of facts has come to 
be valued more highly than any mere beauties 
of style ; at least, no beauties of style are 
allowed to atone for palpable deficiencies in 
matters of fact. The moderns must be taught 
and pleased; but the ancients would be pleased 
and taught. Ancient writers, and the histo- 
rians not less than others, seem to have formed 
their notions of prose composition very much 
upon the model of poetry, which was in most 
languages the earliest kind of literature. As 
their epics were histories, so, in some degree, 
their histories were epics. Such particulars, 
therefore, were taken up in the course of the 
narrative, as seemed best to accord with the 
abstract idea of the work ; not always those 
which a rigid adherence to a plan of compre- 
hension would have made it necessary to 
notice. 

8. The influence of personal or party pre- 
judices is indefinite ; and as it may distort the 
representations of an historian almost uncon- 
sciously to himself, and without impugning 
his general integrity, so it will, in most 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 139 

instances, be impossible, especially after the 
lapse of ages, to discover the precise extent 
to which the operation of such prejudices 
should be allowed for. But if it cannot be 
ascertained how much of the colouring of the 
picture is to be attributed to the medium 
through which an historian exhibits his cha- 
racters, yet the general hues of that medium 
will hardly escape the observation of any 
reader; and being observed, the illusion is 
destroyed. 

But in relation to the influence of personal 
and party prejudices the ancient historians un- 
questionably appear to advantage when com- 
pared with those of modern times. Instances 
of equanimity might be cited from the Greek 
historians, to which few parallels could be ad- 
duced from the pages of modern writers. Like 
the sculptures of the same people, the works 
of the Greek historians, though not wanting in 
the distinctive characters or moving energy of 
life, present an aspect from which the sub- 
limity of repose is never lost. These writers 
seem to have been conscious that they were 
holding up the picture of their times for the 
eyes of all mankind in all ages : they forgot, 
therefore, the passions and interests of the 
moment. 

But the instantaneous diffusion of books 
through all ranks of the community, places a 



140 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

modern author too nearly in the presence 
of his contemporaries to allow him to think 
much of posterity. The clamour of public 
opinion rings around his seclusion : his situa- 
tion, in its essential circumstances, is almost 
the same as that of the public speaker — the 
din of the crowd fills his thoughts, and he for- 
gets the distant fame which his talents might 
command. This presence of his audience 
offers therefore to a modern writer every ex- 
citement and every inducement to the indulg- 
ence of party misrepresentations. If it were 
not for the correcting influences of a free 
press, nothing worthy of the name of history 
would be produced in modern times. 

9. That the Greeks were not in fact much 
inferior to the pictures given of them by their 
historians, the existing monuments of their 
philosophy, their poetry and their arts, abun- 
dantly attest. Indeed if we pass from an 
examination of these monuments and remains 
to the perusal of Herodotus, Thucydides, and 
Xenophon, we shall be far from thinking that 
a tone of exaggerated encomium is to be 
charged upon those writers. From the pages 
of the historians alone we should fail to form 
an adequate idea of the perfection attained in 
all the departments of literature and art by 
the people whose political affairs they narrate. 
Scarcely half of the history of Greece, in a full 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 141 

and philosophical sense of the term, is to be 
srathered from its historians : — we must seek 
for it rather in the remains of its general 
literature, in museums and cabinets, and 
among the ruins that still bespread its soil. 

It is not therefore this sort of general mis- 
representation that is to be suspected in the 
Greek historians ; for more is proved by other 
means than is explicitly affirmed by them. 
But it has been supposed that in their ac- 
counts of military affairs, the Greek historians, 
in order to enhance the glory of their country- 
men in repelling the Persian invasions, have 
vastly exaggerated the power and extent of 
that empire, and the amount of the armies 
with which those of Greece had to contend. 
Some misrepresentations of this kind may 
have been admitted. But yet the pictures 
given by the Greek writers of the wealth and 
resources of the Persian power, of the peurile 
ambition of its monarchs, of the countless 
hosts which they drove before them by the 
lash into Scythia, Egypt, and Europe ; con- 
quering nations rather by devastation than by 
military conduct, by the mouths, more than by 
the swords of their armies, are so strikingly 
similar to unquestionable facts in the later 
history of the Asiatic empires, that, as the one 
cannot be doubted, the other need not be 
deemed incredible. 



142 PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 

10. The arrogance with which, under the 
term barbarians, the Greek writers speak of 
all nations not of Greek extraction, natu- 
rally suggests the belief that we must not 
look to them for a just idea of the state of 
civilization in the surrounding nations. And 
not a few indications may be gathered from 
other sources which authorize the belief that, 
in communities not very distant from Greece 
itself, or its colonies, a degree of intelligence 
and of refinement existed of which it was their 
shame to be ignorant, or their greater shame 
to have taken so little notice. 

11. With the Romans it was perhaps less 
from mere national vanity than from a dictate 
of that deep plotted policy by which they sup- 
ported their unbounded pretensions, that they 
were induced to misrepresent the resources 
and the conduct of the nations on whose necks 
they trampled. This policy would often pro- 
duce misrepresentations of a contrary kind to 
those suggested by national vanity. That 
universal empire was the right of the Roman 
arms was the principle of the state : a reverse 
of fortune therefore was not simply a calamity 
— it was a seeming impeachment of the high 
claim of the republic. The nations must not 
think that their masters could any where find 
equals or rivals in courage or military skill. 
A defeat hurt the political faith of the Roman 



PARTICULAR EXCEPTIONS. 143 

citizen much more than it alarmed his fears ; 
and he would rather waive the glory of having 
broken an arm of equal strength with his own, 
than confess that there was any where an arm 
of equal strength to resist his will. He would 
choose to sustain the aggravated shame of 
having been beaten by an inferior, rather than 
redeem a part of his dishonour by acknow- 
ledging that he had encountered a superior. 
A writer therefore could not do full justice to 
the courage, conduct and successes of the 
enemies of Rome without offering such an 
outrage to the common feeling as would have 
amounted almost to treason against the state. 



CHAPTER V. 

CONFIRMATIONS OP THE EVIDENCE OF HISTORIANS 
DERIVED FROM INDEPENDENT SOURCES. 



Most of the principal facts mentioned by 
ancient historians, as well as many particulars 
of less importance, are confirmed by evidence 
that is altogether independent in its nature, 
and in the channels through which it is de- 
rived. In truth, though the narratives of the 
historians serve to connect and explain the 
entire mass of information that has descended 
to modern times, relative to the nations of 
remote antiquity, they are far from being the 
sole sources of that information : — perhaps 
they hardly furnish one half of the materials 
of history. These independent sources of 
history may be classed under the following 
heads : — 

1. The remains of the general literature of 
the nations of antiquity. 

2. Chronological documents or calculations. 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 145 

3. Permanent geographical and physical 
facts. 

4. Permanent institutions, usages, or phy- 
sical peculiarities of nations. 

5. Existing monuments of art. 

The information derived from these sources 
answers two distinct purposes, namely — that 
of contributing to the amount of our know- 
ledge of the state of civilization among ancient 
nations, and that of furnishing the means of 
corroborating or of correcting the assertions 
of historians on particular points. It is ob- 
vious that to go through the particulars 
comprehended under the general heads above 
named with any degree of precision, would 
greatly exceed the limits of a small volume ; 
and the object proposed in this work will be 
sufficiently attained by merely pointing out, 
in a few instances, the nature and value of this 
sort of corroborative evidence. 

1. Evidence derived from books, coming as 
it does through similar, if not the same chan- 
nels with those by which we receive the works 
of the historians, and being of the same exter- 
nal form, is likely to produce less impression 
on the mind than its real validity ought to 
command. And yet if it be examined in detail 
nothing can be more conclusive than the proof 
that arises from the coincidences of names and 
allusions, found scattered through the works 



146 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

of dramatists, orators, poets, and philosophers, 
with the explicit statements of contemporary 
historians. If, for example, the plays of Aris- 
tophanes and the orations of Demosthenes are 
collated with the narrations of Xenophon, of 
Diodorus and of Plutarch ; — or if the epistles 
and orations of Cicero, and the satires of 
Horace, and of Juvenal, are compared with 
the historical works of Livy, of Sallust, of 
Tacitus, and of Dion Cassius, so many points 
of agreement present themselves as must con- 
vince every one that these historical assertions 
and allusions had a common origin in actual 
facts. 

Yet it is not merely by presenting exact 
coincidences on particular points that the re- 
mains of ancient literature confirm the evi- 
dence of historians ; but also by furnishing 
such pictures of the people among whom they 
were current, in all the points of their political, 
religious, and social condition, as accord with 
the representations of historians. To exhibit 
the proper force of this sort of evidence, let it 
be imagined that — all proper names being 
withdrawn from the works of the classical 
poets, orators, and philosophers, it were at- 
tempted to associate, as countrymen and con- 
temporaries, Herodotus, Thucydides and Xeno- 
phon, with Cicero, Horace and Seneca; or 
Tacitus, Caesar and Suetonius, with Isocrates, 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 147 

Plato and iEschylus L every page in the one 
class of writers would present some incon- 
gruity with the accounts given by the others. 
But on the contrary, in perusing contemporary 
writers of the same nation, whatever may be 
the diversities of their style or subject, we 
feel that they were surrounded by the same 
objects, and open to the same influences. 

2. The corroborative evidence derived from 
chronological inscriptions, or from calculations 
can never be well separated from recondite 
and minute investigations, and is therefore 
not adapted to our present purpose. Indeed 
the ancient historians being often destitute 
of sufficiently precise chronological informa- 
tion, and often less observant of dates than 
the modern style of history demands, leave 
the subject open to perplexing difficulties ; 
and to these difficulties are added that uncer- 
tainty which belongs peculiarly, as we have 
before remarked, to whatever relates to num- 
bers in the text of ancient authors. It must 
not however be supposed that ancient chrono- 
logy is altogether unfixed, for though it may 
be hard to determine the precise time of many 
events, the results of different calculations 
are seldom so widely discordant as to be of 
much importance in the general outline of 
history. 

3. The inequalities of the earth's surface, 



148 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

the course of rivers, the peculiarities of cli- 
mate, and the vegetable and animal produc- 
tions of each country, though not immutable, 
are not ordinarily subject, even in the lapse of 
many ages, to very extensive changes. We 
have therefore now open to our observation 
the same scenes and the same physical ap- 
pearances which were described or alluded to 
by historians twenty centuries ago ; and so 
far as we find their accounts of these perma- 
nent objects to accord with present and well 
known facts, we may fairly accept such coinci- 
dences as a pledge of general accuracy and 
authenticity : for if an historian was careful 
to obtain correct information on points in- 
directly connected with his subject, it is but 
just to believe that he was at least equally 
exact in what belongs more immediately to 
his narrative. 

We have already adverted to the geogra- 
phical accuracy of Herodotus, and have re- 
marked that the descriptions he gives of 
countries and their productions are such, for 
the most part, as prove that he had himself 
seen what he describes. That the Greek his- 
torians should be exact in what relates to 
the geography and productions of their own 
narrow soil is nothing more than what must 
be expected. But when we find them accu- 
rate in their descriptions of regions remote 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 149 

from Greece, and very imperfectly known to 
their countrymen in general, they furnish a 
proof of authenticity that may be extended to 
cases in which we are obliged to accept their 
unsupported testimony. 

A sufficient illustration on this head is fur- 
nished in the instance of Arrian's history of 
Alexander's expedition — his Indian history, 
and his description of the shores of the Indian 
Ocean. The geographical particulars which 
occur in these works are, in general, so exact 
that modern travellers find no difficulty in 
identifying every spot he mentions. This proof 
of accuracy well supports the claim to authen- 
tic information advanced by the author at the 
commencement of his work, where he declares 
that his history is compiled from the memoirs 
of Ptolemy and of Aristobulus, two of Alexan- 
der's generals ; that he had collated their as- 
sertions on all points, and added from other 
sources, only such particulars as seemed to be 
the most worthy of credit. 

Now if Arrian's history of Alexander's ex- 
pedition is compared with that of Quintus 
Curtius, on points of geography, it will be 
found that the latter writer was either utterly 
ignorant on the subject, or quite indifferent to 
the correctness of his statements. This proof 
therefore of want of diligence or want of in- 
formation detracts very greatly from the his- 



150 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

torian's authority on all points which rest on 
his sole testimony. Though an ahle and at- 
tractive writer, Curtius awakens the reader's 
suspicion by the character of his style, which 
betrays a fondness for decoration and enlarge- 
ment : — this suspicion is then not a little en- 
hanced by the palpable evidence of his inaccu- 
racy in matters of fact. 

The permanence of the names of places, 
under various modifications in the value of 
vowels or consonants, affords a very curious 
and important means of authenticating the 
assertions of ancient historians. Innumerable 
instances may be adduced in which the names 
of obscure villages in Asia Minor, Armenia, 
Persia, Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, and Nubia, 
recal to every one's recollection the names 
occurring in the ancient history of the same 
countries. And those remote names could 
never have found their way into the pages of 
the Greek and Roman historians if they had 
not sought and employed genuine documents 
in the composition of their works. 

In many particulars the statements of the 
ancient geographers — Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny, 
and Pausanias, are at variance with each 
other, and with the narratives of the contem- 
porary historians ; but in by far the greater 
number of instances there is as much accord- 
ance as is usually found among modern tra- 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 



151 



vellers. And when the ancient geography, 
whether collected from geographers or histo- 
rians, is collated with the modern — whatever 
difficulties may here and there present them- 
selves in the way of a perfect conciliation, no 
one can doubt that the former, taken as a 
whole, is a genuine account of facts collected 
by actual observation. 

4. A similar kind of confirmation arises 
from a comparison of the descriptions given 
by the ancient historians of the physical pecu- 
liarities, manners, and usages of nations, with 
facts relative to the modern occupants of the 
same countries. If national manners and 
usages are less permanent than the features 
of the country or than the productions of the 
soil, they are much more so than might be 
supposed when we recollect how many revo- 
lutions sweep across the surface of society in 
the course of ages. Though man is not abso- 
lutely the creature of the soil that supports him, 
and though he does not retain every peculiarity 
which descends to him from his progenitors, 
yet neither is he ever free from some perma- 
nent marks of tribe, of climate, or of locality. 
Or if by the developement of mind and the 
advance of civilization, his circumstances and 
his manners undergo apparently a thorough 
and universal change, yet even then will there 
remain many lesser indications of his obsolete 



152 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 



condition ; and many habits and usages, too 
minute and trivial to have attracted attention, 
if they did not awaken historical recollections, 
will continue to identify the modern with the 
ancient race. Four conquests and eighteen 
centuries have not wholly obliterated from the 
English people all traces of their British an- 
cestors; and in some races, for example — the 
Egyptian, the Jeivish, and the Scythian, a much 
more perceptible sameness has been main- 
tained during even a longer course of ages. 

Such living monuments of antiquity are 
not only highly curious in themselves, but 
very significant for the illustration of ancient 
history. Yet it must be acknowledged that 
the materials for this kind of illustration are 
the most abundant where they are of the least 
value ; and the scantiest where they would be 
the most prized. For it is among half civilized 
nations, that manners and modes of life are 
permanent ; while the advance of intelligence 
and refinement produces changes so great as 
to leave only faint traces of original charac- 
teristics. Thus in the plains of Asia, and in the 
deserts of Africa, we find nations which, in 
their physical peculiarities, their manners and 
usages, differ little, if at all, from the descrip- 
tions given of their predecessors on the same 
soil by Herodotus, or Strabo. Meanwhile the 
successive occupants of the European con- 



independent evidence. 153 

tinent — active, intelligent and free, have passed 
under all forms of human life, and have re- 
tained but few resemblances to their remote 
ancestors. 

One climate, indeed, necessitates a much 
greater degree of permanency in the habits of 
the people than another. The fervours of the 
equatorial regions, and the rigours of the 
north, subdue man to a passive conformity 
with certain modes of life. These extremes of 
temperature vanquish his individual will, for- 
bid the caprices of his tastes, and restrain his 
invention. But in temperate climates, almost 
every mode of life is practicable, and almost 
all modes will therefore in turns be practised. 

The permanency of manners, even where the 
most extensive revolutions have taken place, 
is strikingly displayed in the modern people of 
Greece. The successive generations of six- 
and-twenty centuries have passed away since 
the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, and yet, 
when the ancient race, as described by Homer, 
is compared with the modern people, the points 
of sameness are innumerable.* Not only is 
the language essentially the same, but the 
modes of thinking and feeling, the supersti- 
tions, the costumes, the habits of the inha- 



* Dodwell, in his Classical Tour in Greece, points out a great 
number of these coincidences. 



154 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

bitants of particular spots have, in a large 
number of instances, been scarcely affected by 
the lapse of time. If the peculiarities of the 
race, as described by Homer, may still be 
recognized, it is no wonder if we find in the 
present manners of the people numerous illus- 
trations of the pictures drawn by the historians 
of a later age. The descriptions given by 
Caesar and Tacitus of the manners of the 
Gauls, Britons, and Germans, are capable of 
receiving a like authentication, though not 
in an equal degree, from usages still existing 
among the northern nations of Europe. 

5. The existing remains of ancient art would 
almost supply materials for a body of history, 
if all books had perished. These relics some- 
times serve to establish particular facts, and 
sometimes afford ground from which to deduce 
general inferences relative to the wealth, 
power, and intelligence of the nations to whom 
they belonged. In either case, the evidence 
they yield is of the most conclusive kind ; for 
the solid material is in our hands, or before 
our eyes, and in most cases is liable to no 
misinterpretation. 

So extensive are the inferences that may 
fairly be derived from such existing remains, 
that of some ancient nations we know more 
from this source alone, than is to be gathered 
from the entire evidence of written history; 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 155 

at least, what is thus learned, if it be in some 
respects vague, has more of the substantial 
quality of knowledge, and much better de- 
serves to be called history, than those bare 
catalogues of the names of kings, which are 
often dignified with the term. A name, or 
twenty names, unconnected with general facts; 
or a date, serving only to bring a bare name 
into its proper place in a chronological chart, 
may indeed impart the semblance of history, 
but affords almost nothing of the substance. 
What we gather, for example, from written 
history, relative to the Assyrian empire, or to 
the early kingdoms of Greece, is much less 
significant than the historical inferences rela- 
tive to the people of Egypt, which are fairly de- 
ducible from the remains of their architecture. 

The existing monuments of art, available as 
sources of historical information, are, 1. build- 
ings and public works ; 2. sculptures and 
gems ; 3. inscriptions and coins ; 4. paintings, 
mosaics, and vases ; and 5. implements and 
arms. 

For the purpose of confirming, correcting, or 
illustrating the assertions of historians on par- 
ticular points, recourse must most often be had 
to the evidence of inscriptions * and coins ; and 

* No one can question the utility of inscriptions for the il- 
lustration of history : but the student who cannot devote his 



156 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

every one knows that from these sources all 
the leading facts of Greek and Roman history 
may be authenticated. The latter are especially 
important, both on account of the information 
they convey, and of the mode of its transmis- 
sion to modern times. Coins are brief public 
records. The device they bear is seldom de- 
void of some significant allusion to the peculiar 
pretensions of the realm or city ; the image, 
corresponding in form and expression with 
sculptures or descriptions, fixes the identity of 
the personage ; and the legend furnishes names 
and other notices. Coins, therefore, concen- 
trate several kinds of evidence; and, like 
books, by their multitude, their diffusion, and 
by the mode of their conservation to modern 
times, they are, with very few and unimportant 
exceptions, placed far beyond the reach of 
fraud or deception. The cabinets of the opu- 
lent in all countries are filled with complete 
series of these historical records; and the 



undivided attention to the subject, or who has not access to the 
fullest and best sources of information, may very probably waste 
his time upon documents that he will afterwards discover to be 
extremely fallacious. In no department of antiquarian learning 
have misrepresentations, deceptions, and errors of inadvertency 
more abounded. Authors who were long regarded as unexcep- 
tionable authorities are found to deserve little confidence, and 
on such points a writer who is not worthy of great confidence, is 
worthy of none. 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 157 

spade every day turns up counterparts to those 
already known. Statues and buildings have 
been discovered here and there ; but coins are 
the produce of every soil which civilization 
has at any time visited. 

Sculptures are either historical or poetical ; 
those of the first kind yield a confirmation to 
history which, though indefinite, is worthy of 
attention. That the principal personages 
whose names occur in history were repre- 
sented by the artists of their times, is not only 
probable, but well known. Statues or busts 
of the most distinguished public persons were 
given to the world by several artists, and were 
placed in all the principal cities of the republic 
or the empire, that claimed any reflection of 
their glory. The common principle of compe- 
tition among artists would secure some toler- 
able uniformity — the uniformity of resemblance 
to the originals, among these statues and 
busts ; nor do we at all pass the bounds of 
probability in supposing them to be in general 
real and good portraits. There is, besides, in 
most of them, an air of individuality, which at 
once convinces the practised eye of their 
authenticity. 

So much being assumed, the congruity of 
these forms with the character of the men as 
presented on the page of history, carries with 
it a proof of the truth of those records, which 



158 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

few observers of the human physiognomy can 
question. In order to perceive the force of 
this kind of evidence, it is not at all necessary 
to call for the aid of any systems of physiogno- 
mical science (so called) ; every one's intuitive 
discernment will suffice for the purpose. Let 
the simplest observer of faces and forms, who 
has read the history of Greece and Rome, look 
round a gallery of antique statues and busts, 
will he be in danger of misnaming the heads 
of Themistocles and of Alexander, of Plato and 
of Cicero, of Phocion and of Alcibiades, of 
Demosthenes and of Euclid, of Julius Caesar 
and of Nero ? To those whose eye is exercised 
in the discrimination of forms, the best exe- 
cuted of these antique heads speak their own 
biography with a distinctness that gives irre- 
sistible attestation to the accounts of histo- 
rians. 

Mythological or poetical sculptures afford 
inferences of a more general kind, most of 
which are suggested also by an examination 
of the temples of which they were the fur- 
niture. The exquisite forms of the Grecian 
chisel declare that the superstition they em- 
bodied, though frivolous and licentious, was 
framed more for pleasure than for fear ; that 
it was rather poetical than metaphysical. 
They do not indicate that the religious system 
of the people was sanguinary and ferocious ; 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 159 

or that it was the engine of priestly despotism. 
One would imagine that the ministers of these 
deities were more the servants of the people's 
amusements, than the tyrants of their con- 
sciences, property, and persons. 

The Grecian sculptures give proof that the 
superstition to which they belonged, however 
false or absurd it might be, was open to all the 
ameliorations and embellishments of a highly 
refined literature. The sacred sculptures of 
India are undisguised and significant repre- 
sentatives of the horrid vices enjoined and 
practised by the priests. But the lettered taste 
of the Greeks taught their artists to invest 
each attribute of evil with some form of beauty. 
The hideousness of the vindictive passions 
must be hid beneath the character of tranquil 
power ; and the loathsomeness of the sensual 
passions veiled by the perfect ideal of loveli- 
ness. Art, left to itself, does not adopt these 
corrections, nor do the authors of superstitious 
systems ask for them. There must be poetry, 
there must be philosophy at hand, to whisper 
cautions to the wantonness of art. 

When the remains of ancient structures are 
examined for the purpose of collecting histo- 
rical information, they must be viewed under 
three distinct aspects ; namely — the resources 
required for their construction — the purposes 
to which they were devoted ; and the taste 



160 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

they display. A few instances will show the 
nature and extent of the inferences that may 
be drawn from such an examination. 

The remains of Egyptian architecture have 
long outlasted the fame of those whose 
names they were charged to transmit to 
distant times. Or if some few names have 
been handed down by historians, or have been 
drawn from their hieroglyphical concealments 
by modern researches, the whole amount of such 
discoveries may be comprised in a few lines, 
and falls very far short of conveying any thing 
like a history of the people. But some general 
facts relative to the wealth, commerce, indus- 
try, institutions, manners, and superstitions of 
the Egyptians, have been reported by histo- 
rians ; and the descriptions of that country and 
its people, given by Herodotus, Strabo, Dio- 
dorus, and Plutarch, confirmed by incidental 
allusions in other writers, and especially by a 
few significant expressions occurring in the 
Jewish Scriptures, afford a tolerably complete 
idea of this the most extraordinary of all na- 
tions, ancient or modern. Now this testimony 
of the historians is corroborated, with peculiar 
distinctness, by those ruins which still lead the 
traveller to the banks of the Nile. 

These stupendous remains attest, in the first 
place, the unbounded wealth affirmed by his- 
torians to have been at the command of the 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 161 

Egyptian monarchs ; a wealth derived chiefly 
from the extraordinary fertility of the country, 
which, like the plains of Babylon, yielded a 
three hundred-fold return of grain. And as 
the revenues of a vast empire were added to 
the home resources of the Babylonian mo- 
narchs, so the products of a widely extended 
commerce augmented the treasures of the 
Egyptian kings. The mouths of the Nile be- 
came the centre of trade between the eastern 
and the western worlds ; and that river, after 
depositing a teeming mud in one year, bore 
upon its bosom, in the next, the harvest it had 
given, for the supply of distant and less fertile 
regions. Nor was the industry of the people — 
numerous beyond example, wanting to improve 
every advantage of nature. But for whom was 
this unbounded wealth amassed ? under whose 
control was it expended ? The testimony of 
historians coincides with that of the existing 
ruins in declaring that a despotism, political 
and religious, of unexampled perfection, and 
very unlike any thing that has since been seen, 
disposed of the vast surplus products of agri- 
culture and of commerce. 

By what forms of exaction or monopoly the 
Egyptian kings held at their command the pro- 
perty and the services of the people, cannot be 
satisfactorily determined ; but it seems as if 
only one centre of real possession was acknow- 

M 



162 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

ledged, and that habits of thinking and acting, 
bound down to certain unalterable modes, by 
ten thousand threads of superstitious observ- 
ances, favoured a tranquil transfer of all rights 
to the head of the state. With such resources 
therefore at his disposal, and with a people 
much better fitted by their temperament and 
habits for labour than for war — for the inhabi- 
tants of fertile plains have ever been less war- 
like than those of mountainous regions— the 
master of Egypt could hardly do otherwise than 
expend his means upon extensive structures. 

Such a degree of scientific skill in masonry 
as belongs to a middle stage of civilization, in 
which the human faculties are but half de- 
veloped, is what the accounts of historians 
would lead us to expect ; and it is just what 
these remains actually display. There is some 
science, but there is much more of cost and 
labour. The works undertaken by the Egyp- 
tian builders were such as a calculable waste of 
human life would complete ; but not such as 
demand the mastery of practical difficulties by 
high efforts of mathematical genius. They could 
rear pyramids, or excavate catacombs, or hew 
temples from solid rocks of granite ; but they 
attempted no works like those executed by the 
artists of the middle ages. For to poise so 
high in air the fretted roof and slender spire 
of a gothic minster required a cost of mind 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE* 163 

greater than was at the command of the Egyp- 
tian kings. 

The purposes to which the structures of 
Egypt appear to have been devoted, agree also 
with the accounts of historians. If the esta- 
blished despotism were such as to permit ca- 
pricious sovereigns to indulge their personal 
vanity without restraint, better and more wise 
maxims of government were acknowledged 
and often followed; and the traces of public 
works of vast extent and great utility every 
where attest the intelligence and good dispo- 
sitions of some of the Egyptian kings. Canals, 
piers, reservoirs, aqueducts, are not less abun- 
dant than temples and pyramids. Indeed the 
temples of Egypt must not be placed altogether 
to the account of the vanity of kings, or the 
pride of priests ; for as the Roman emperors 
expended a portion of the tribute of the world 
in the erection of theatres for the gratification 
of favoured provinces, so the Egyptian kings, 
for the pleasure of their subjects 9 reared in all 
parts of the land those sacred menageries of wor- 
shipful bulls, crocodiles, cows, apes, cats, dogs, 
onions, and others, the like august personages 
of the common religion. And it is recorded 
that the two kings whose names were held in 
execration by posterity on account of the cruel 
labours they exacted from their people, were 
not builders of temples, but of pyramids. (He- 
rodotus, book 2. sec. 128.) 



164 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

A mound of earth one foot in height satisfies 
that feeling of our nature which impels us to 
preserve from disturbance the recent remains 
of the dead ; but a pyramid five hundred feet 
in height was not too tall a tomb for an 
Egyptian king ! The varnished doll into which 
the art of the apothecary converted the carcase 
of the deceased monarch, must needs rest in 
the deep bowels of a mountain of hewn stone ! 
More complete proof of the absolute subjuga- 
tion of the popular will in ancient Egypt can- 
not be imagined than that afforded by the fact, 
that so much masonry was piled for such a 
purpose. The pyramids could never move the 
general enthusiasm of the people, they could 
only gratify the crazy vanity of the man at 
whose command they were reared. These 
tapering quadrangles, as they were the pro- 
duct, so they may be viewed as the proper 
images of a pure despotism ; vast in the sur- 
face it covers, and the materials it combines, 
the prodigious mass serves only to give tower- 
ing altitude to — a point. 

A literature like that of Greece would have 
protected the Egyptians from the toils of 
building pyramids : had they possessed poets 
like Homer, historians like Thucydides, and 
philosophers like Aristotle, their kings would 
neither have dared, nor have wished to attach 
their fame to bare bulks of stone, displaying 
no trace of genius, either in the design or the 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 165 

execution. The Egyptian kings committed 
their names to pyramids, which have long 
since betrayed the trust. — The Greeks con- 
signed the renown of their chiefs to the frail 
papyrus of the Nile, and the record still en- 
dures. 

The accordance of the taste displayed in the 
forms and embellishments of the Egyptian 
temples, with the temperament and institutions 
of the people, as described by historians, just 
deserves to be noticed ; though, of course, no 
very positive conclusions ought to be drawn 
from facts of this class. It is the province of 
art, whatever may be the material upon which 
it works, to combine in various proportions the 
two elements of effect — sameness and differ- 
ence — uniformity and variety — harmony and 
opposition. A work of art in which these 
principles should be wholly disjoined, or which 
should exhibit only one of them, if that were 
possible, might amaze the spectator, but could 
never produce pleasure. To combine them in 
exact accordance with the intended effect of 
the work, is the perfection of art. If the im- 
pression to be produced inclines to the side of 
grandeur and sublimity, the principle of same- 
ness or uniformity must predominate; and 
every variety that is admitted in the embellish- 
ments, must be quelled by constant repetitions 
of the same form. But if the sentiment to be 



166 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 



awakened is that of pleasure, gaiety, and vo- 
luptuousness, the second principle, or that 
of difference, variety, and opposition, must 
triumph over the first. Now a uniform pre- 
ference of one of these styles in works of art, 
must be held to characterize the temper of the 
people whom they are intended to please. 

The Egyptian architecture is distinguished, 
perhaps beyond that of any other people, by its 
subjection to the law of uniformity, and by the 
apparent aim of the artist to vanquish the 
imagination of the spectator by an aspect of 
sublimity ; the sentiment of awe was the inten- 
tion ; bulk and sameness were the means. 

This character of Egyptian art, which pre- 
vails almost without exception in all the exist- 
ing remains, comports well with the idea of an 
absolute subjugation of the people beneath a 
system of religious and civil despotism. But 
it has a remarkable significance when consi- 
dered in connection with the peculiar nature 
of the worship to which these temples were 
devoted. While we gaze with wonder and awe 
at the massy buttresses of these structures, 
at their towering obelisks, at their long ranges 
of columns, formed as if to support the weight 
of mountains, and at the colossal guards of the 
portico, we have to recollect that these temples 
were the consecrated palaces of crocodiles, of 
cows, of ichneumons, of dogs, cats, or apes. 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 167 

It seems as if, for the purpose of effecting the 
most complete degradation of the popular 
mind, the superstition had been framed from 
the vilest materials it was possible to choose ; 
while, to enhance and secure its influence, a 
nobly imagined art combined every element of 
awful grandeur. The imagination was se- 
duced by a show of sublimity, in order that 
the moral sense might, the more effectually, be 
trodden in the dust. 

We pass by the mathematical ornaments, and 
the vegetable imitations of the Egyptian archi- 
tecture, which, besides being admirably ima- 
gined and executed, are all in perfect harmony 
with the general taste of the buildings. But 
the character of the human figures attached 
to many of the temples, demands a passing 
notice. 

Not a few of these human figures exhibit 
a high degree of excellence within certain 
bounds ; these bounds are a strict adherence 
to the national contour and costume (neither 
of which could have been preferred by artists 
who had seen the people of Europe and Asia), 
and a rigid observance of architectural direct- 
ness of position. In a very few extant ex- 
amples, the artists so far transgressed the rules 
imposed upon them, as to prove that they had 
the command of attitudes more varied than 
those they ordinarily exhibited ; indeed, it is 



168 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 



contrary to all analogy to suppose, that so 
much executive talent should exist along with 
an incapacity to give life and variety to the 
figure. The Chinese, who as artists are much 
inferior to the ancient Egyptian sculptors, 
ordinarily pass far beyond them in the range 
of action and position which they give to their 
human figures. If a taste so rigid had be- 
longed to the first stage of art, it must, unless 
otherwise restricted, have soon admitted ame- 
lioration. The artists of a second age would 
have sought reputation by venturing beyond 
the limits within which their predecessors 
were confined. 

It seems then hardly possible to explain the 
frozen uniformity exhibited by the Egyptian 
sculptures, except by supposing that art, like 
every thing else, was the slave of a perfect 
despotism. The human forms supporting the 
porticos or roofs, all stand and look as if in 
the presence of superior power. Freedom of 
position, or an attitude of force, of agility, 
or even of inattentive repose, or any indica- 
tion of individual will, would have broken in 
upon the idea of universal subjection. The 
master of Egypt must not look upon forms 
that do not speak submission. 

And yet there is an air of serenity (though 
not such as springs from the consciousness of 
personal dignity) but such as tends towards 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 169 

gaiety, in almost all these sculptures : the look 
is altogether servile ; but it is unrepining, 
and seems to express acquiescence in that 
immutable order of things which transferred 
the rights of all to one. 

That such a condition of the social system 
as this actually existed in the times when the 
Egyptian temples were reared, cannot be posi- 
tively affirmed merely on the grounds above 
mentioned : but if, amidst the ill founded en- 
comiums bestowed upon the Egyptian institu- 
tions by ancient historians, there may clearly be 
traced the indications of a state of unexampled 
subjection to fixed modes of action in the 
social, religious, and political systems of the 
people, the existing monuments of their archi- 
tecture and sculpture must be acknowledged 
to accord well with these indications. If this 
accordance is thought to be fanciful, let it be 
attempted to associate our notions of the 
Grecian people and their institutions with the 
Egyptian architecture and sculpture. — No one 
could for a moment entertain together ideas 
so incongruous. 

The Grecian architecture, though its ele- 
ments were evidently derived from that of 
Egypt, may be contrasted with it in almost 
every point. The people to whom these com- 
paratively diminutive, yet perfect structures 
belonged, manifestly were not the masters of 



170 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

boundless wealth : but their intelligence so 
much exceeded their resources that they at 
once reached the ultimate point of art, which 
is to induce upon its materials a new value, 
so great that the mere cost of the work is for- 
gotten. In surveying the Egyptian temples 
we wonder at the wealth that could pay for 
them ; in viewing those of Greece we only ad- 
mire the genius of the architect who imagined 
them, and the taste of the people who admired 
them. 

The plains of Greece are burdened by no 
huge monuments whose only intention is to 
crush the common feelings of a nation beneath 
the weight of one man's vanity ; but temples, 
the property of all — temples, free from the 
characters of gloom and of ferocity, adorned 
the whole face of the country. 

A more striking point of contrast cannot be 
selected than that presented by a comparison 
of the human figures (above-mentioned) at- 
tached to the Egyptian temples, with those 
that decorate the Grecian architecture. The 
Grecian caryatides assume the utmost liberty, 
ease, and variety of position which may com- 
port with the burdensome duty of supporting 
the pediment: they give their heads to the 
mass of masonry above them, not with the 
passiveness of slaves, but with the alacrity of 
free persons. The Egyptian figures stand like 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 171 

the personifications of unchanging duration; 
but of the Grecian, one might think, that they 
had but just stepped from the merry crowd, 
and were themselves pleased spectators of the 
festivities that are passing before them. 

The Roman architecture, compared with 
that of India or of China, is only so far less 
barbarous as it is more Grecian. In the arts 
the Romans were imitators, and are hardly 
ever to be admired when they wandered from 
their pattern. Those structures in which they 
might best claim the praise of originality — 
namely, their vast theatres, are much rather 
monuments of wealth, luxury, and native 
ferocity of character, than of taste or intelli- 
gence. 

The structures which shed the greatest 
lustre upon the Roman name, are those public 
works — roads, bridges, and aqueducts, which 
every where mark the presence of their 
legions ; and these attest that vigour of cha- 
racter, that unconquerable perseverance, that 
regard to utility, and especially that steady 
pursuit of universal empire, which history 
declares to have characterized the Roman 
people and government. 

The student of history, though he may not 
have access to museums, and though costly 
antiquarian publications should never come into 
his possession, may find, even in his seclusion, 



172 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

some visible and palpable proofs of the authen- 
ticity of the Roman historians ; for the circuit 
of a few miles in almost every district of the 
British Islands will offer illustrations of the 
narratives of Caesar, of Tacitus, and of Sueto- 
nius. Though the occupation of Britain by 
the Romans was of shorter continuance than 
that of almost any other country included 
within the empire, and though their possession 
of the island was partial and disturbed, they 
made themselves so much at home with our 
ancestors that our soil teems with the relics 
of their visit of three hundred years. Roman 
camps, roads, walls, and baths; — mosaics, 
vases, weapons, utensils, and coins, are as 
abundant almost in England as in Italy ; and 
quite abundant enough to substantiate the 
proud glories claimed for the Roman arms by 
their historians. 



If then it were possible to entertain a doubt 
of the authenticity of the body of ancient his- 
tory, taken in the mass ; or if the credibility 
of a particular author is questioned ; or if 
some single fact is open to controversy, we 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 173 

are not left to rely alone upon the validity of 
general arguments in proof of the apparent 
competency, veracity, and impartiality of the 
ancient historians ; but may, in almost all 
cases, appeal to unquestionable facts, support- 
ing the affirmative side of such questions. 
We may compare the testimony of the histo- 
rians themselves, one with another, or with 
that of contemporary writers in other depart- 
ments of literature, whose allusions to public 
events or persons are of an incidental kind; 
or we may compare the descriptions given by 
historians of natural objects, or of national 
peculiarities, with the same objects or pecu- 
liarities still existing ; or, to take a method 
still more precise and palpably certain, we 
may read upon marbles, or upon brass, or 
gold, or silver, long buried in the earth, 
explicit records of the very events, or memo- 
rials of the very persons, mentioned by histo- 
rians. Or we may examine the remains of 
public works and buildings described by the 
historians, and according with their accounts 
of the power, tastes, and habits of the people 
who reared them. 

With all these various means of proof there 
may yet remain some few points of history 
not satisfactorily attested, or liable to reason- 
able suspicion; but the great mass of facts 



174 INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 

will be so fully established as to render 
scepticism altogether absurd. 

But the proof which establishes the general 
authenticity of the ancient historians, and 
which demonstrates that these writings are, 
in the main, what they profess to be — that is, 
genuine narratives of events, composed and 
published in the age to which they are usually 
assigned, carries with it hy implication a proof 
of the genuineness of all other remains of 
ancient literature. If, for example, we have 
under our touch palpable evidence that the 
works of Tacitus are genuine and authentic, 
we can no longer deny that the raft on which 
ancient books floated down through so many 
ages was substantially secure, and that what- 
ever mists may seem to hang over some parts 
of the channel of transmission, the vessel and 
its cargo did actually pass undamaged through 
the gloom. 

Though this inference is applicable to the 
remains of ancient literature more in the 
mass than in detail ; it possesses a conclusive 
force, against all vague and sweeping attacks 
upon the genuineness and integrity of ancient 
writings, as if incapable of certain proof. 
Those who profess to entertain doubts of this 
sort, do not ordinarily apply themselves with 
assiduous care to the examination of any one 



INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE. 175 

instance, or patiently refute particular proofs ; 
but rather fling about broad assertions, tend- 
ing to destroy all confidence in the process 
and medium by which the records of antiquity 
have been conveyed to modern times. Now 
to such general insinuations, we offer a full 
and sufficient reply when we adduce demon- 
strative proof of the authenticity of historical 
works which could not have contained con-' 
sistent and circumstantial truth unless ac- 
tually written in the age they pretend to. 
If then some books have descended entire 
through eighteen or twenty centuries, others 
may have done so; and no objection can be 
maintained against ancient books a priori ; nor 
can any suspicion rest upon particular works 
except such as may be justified by some spe- 
cific proof of spuriousness. 



CHAPTER VI. 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES, APPLICABLE TO QUESTIONS 
OF GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 

Civilization has not ordinarily, if ever, 
sprung up spontaneously in any land ; but a 
germ of the arts and of literature, transmitted 
from people to people, and passed down from 
age to age, has taken root and become prolific, 
in a degree generally proportioned to the 
amount and variety of those elements of so- 
cial and intellectual improvement that have 
been received from distant sources. 

These germs of civilization may have been 
transported and scattered by colonization, 
trade, or conquest ; but they never so fully 
expand as when cherished by an imported 
literature. It is not by comparing themselves 
with themselves that individuals or nations 
become wise ; and though there are efforts of 
genius which seem to owe nothing to extra- 
neous sources, the general perfectionment of 



PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 177 

reason and of taste can only be attained by an 
extended knowledge of what has been thought 
and performed by men of other nations and of 
other times. 

Of all the inestimable advantages which 
raise the inhabitants of England and of France 
above those of Turkey or of China, very few 
can be named that have not, directly or in- 
directly, sprung from a knowledge of the 
civilization, arts, and literature of ancient 
nations. What would be left to the people of 
Europe if all this knowledge, and all its re- 
motest consequences, could be at once sub- 
tracted from their religious, political, and in- 
tellectual condition ? But it must be remem- 
bered that it is chiefly by the transmission of 
boohs from age to age that this yeast of civi- 
lization is possessed and enjoyed. If those 
works which we believe to be genuine are not 
so, we may be said to hold all the blessings of 
social and intellectual advancement by a forged 
title. For on such a supposition the first stock 
or rudiments of our advantages have sprung 
from a mass of fabrications. No one enter- 
tains such a supposition ; yet it must be ad- 
mitted if any general objections are to be ad- 
mitted against the mode in which ancient lite- 
rature has been transmitted to modern times. 

Such general objections are never formally 
made or insinuated in relation to the remains 

N 



178 PRINCIPLES OF 

of classic literature, for two reasons ; — first, 
because an attempt to support a sceptical doc- 
trine of this sort would be treated by the 
learned with silent contempt, as proceeding 
only from a whimsical love of paradox, or 
from an inane ambition to attract attention; 
and secondly, because the unlearned could 
never be induced to take interest enough in a 
controversy on such a subject to reward the 
pains of those who might attempt to delude 
them. 

But it is quite otherwise in relation to the 
Holy Scriptures; for while some few of the 
learned are, from corrupt motives, willing to 
aid an attempt to bring the authority of these 
books into suspicion, there are always thou- 
sands of the community who may easily be 
engaged to listen to objectors, and who, from 
their want of information and incapacity to 
reason correctly, are liable to every seduc- 
tion. 

Nor is it only the uneducated classes that 
are exposed to the artifices of sophists; for 
persons whose acquirements in general litera- 
ture are respectable, seem sometimes to be 
perplexed by objections of a kind which, if 
levelled at the remains of classic authors, they 
would deem undeserving of a serious reply. 

This strange and often fatal inconsistency 
may sometimes arise from the influence of 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 179 

moral causes, which it does not fall within the 
design of this volume to notice ; hut it is also 
attributable to a want of attention to some 
common principles of evidence which, though 
they are so obvious and simple that it may 
seem almost frivolous to insist upon them, are 
never respected by objectors, and seldom re- 
membered by the victims of sophistry. The 
most prominent of these principles may be 
classed under the five following- heads. 



I. 



Facts remote from our personal observation 
may be as certainly proved by evidence that is 
fallible in its kind, as by that which is not open 
to the possibility of error. 

By certain proof is here meant, not merely 
such as may be presented to the senses, or 
such as cannot be rendered obscure even for a 
moment by a perverse disputant; — but such 
as, when once understood, leaves no room for 
doubt in a sound mind. And this degree of cer- 
tainty is every day obtained in the common 
occasions of life by means of evidence that is 
fallible in its nature, and questionable in all 
its parts separately considered. A person, for 
example, receives letters from several of his 



180 PRINCIPLES OP 

friends in a neighbouring town, informing him 
that an extensive fire has just happened in 
that place, by which the greater part of the 
inhabitants have been driven from their 
homes : — presently afterwards a crowd of the 
sufferers, bringing with them the few remains 
of their furniture, passes his door : — his friends 
arrive among them, and ask shelter for their 
families ; — the next day the papers contain a 
full description of the calamity. But human 
testimony is fallacious : — and it more often 
happens that men lie, than that towns are 
burned down :* — there is not one of all those 
who have reported the fact whose veracity 
ought to be considered as absolutely unim- 
peachable ; — many of them deserve no confi- 
dence ; — and as for the public prints, they 
every day admit narratives altogether un- 
founded. 

This sort of scepticism on such an occasion, 
if it is supposable, could be attributed only to 
a degree of mental imbecility, not much differ- 
ing from insanity. In other words, this degree 
of evidence is such as leaves no room for doubt 
in a sound mind, although the material of 
which it is composed, if we may so speak, is in 
itself fallible, and although all the parts of it, 
separately taken, might be rejected. 

* The principle of Hume's argument against the reception of 
any testimony in support of alleged miracles. 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 181 

Or let us take an example or two of another 
kind. It has been long affirmed by voyagers, 
and on their authority by the compilers of 
geographical works, and by the framers of 
charts, that, midway in the Pacific Ocean, 
there are several groups of inhabited islands. 
And the landsmen of England think these af- 
firmations as certain as that two and two are 
four. But who does not know that voyagers 
are fond of bringing home tales invented to 
amuse the weariness of the passage, and pub- 
lished to win the wonder of the vulgar ? It 
may just be imagined that some question of 
national importance, some argument for the 
remission of taxes, depended upon proving 
that such islands do not exist; and then let 
it be supposed that certain perverse and in- 
terested disputants are permitted to have the 
ear of the common people all to themselves : 
in such a case the proof of this fact, certain as 
it is, might be made to appear very question- 
able, or altogether unworthy of belief; — in a 
word, a trick of the government, contrived to 
wring money from the people. 

Or again : — It is affirmed that some two 
hundred years ago the parliament of England 
quarrelled with their king, levied war against 
him, vanquished and beheaded him, and set 
up a republican form of government. But in 
proof of these facts we have no better evidence 



182 PRINCIPLES OF 

than the testimony of historians : the whole 
story rests on the credit of old books or manu- 
scripts ; nor is there one of the writers who 
have transmitted the narrative that may not 
be convicted of some misrepresentation ; and 
many of them are plainly chargeable with 
direct and wilful untruths. And yet the prin- 
cipal events of the civil war are, in the estima- 
tion of all persons of sound mind as certainly 
established as any mathematical proposition. 
The same may be said of innumerable facts 
much more remote or apparently obscure than 
those above-mentioned ; but which are so 
proved that they cannot be questioned without 
doing violence to common sense. 

The difference between the proof obtained 
by mathematical demonstration and that which 
results from oral or written testimony is not 
that the latter must always, and from its nature, 
be less certain than the former ; but that the 
certainty of the former may be exhibited more 
readily and by a simpler and more compact 
process than that of the other. If it were 
denied that the three angles of every triangle 
are equal to two right angles, an actual mea- 
surement of lines, or the placing of two pieces 
of card one over the other, would end the dis- 
pute in a moment : or if the problem were of 
a more complicated kind, belonging to the 
higher branches of mathematical science, and 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 183 

such therefore as could not he made plain to 
an uninstructed person hy any means, or to any 
one by a very brief process, yet whoever 
chooses to bestow time and is capable of 
bestowing attention enough upon the demon- 
stration, will not fail at length to be convinced 
of its truth ; for all the parts of which it con- 
sists are certain, and their connection, one 
with another, is also certain. But the cer- 
tainty that is obtained from a crowd of testi- 
mony, oral or written, does not result from 
the solidity of the separate parts, and the 
firmness of the cement which connects them ; 
but from the irresistible pressure of the mass. 
The strength of mathematical demonstra- 
tion is like that of a pier;— the strength of 
accumulated testimony is like that of the 
swelling ocean. 



II. 



Facts remote from our personal knowledge 
are not necessarily more or less certain in 
proportion to the length of time that has 
elapsed since they took place. 

An illusion of the imagination, taking its 
rise naturally from the indistinctness of our 
recollections of infancy, and from the subse- 



184 PRINCIPLES OF 

quent obliteration of many of the records of 
memory, leads us involuntarily to attach an 
idea of obscurity and of uncertainty to what- 
ever is remote in time. And besides ; if the 
knowledge of remote facts has been imper- 
fectly or suspiciously transmitted, if there is 
a want of proper evidence on any point of 
ancient history, then the distance of time does 
really decrease the chances of collecting new 
evidence ; and therefore holds such facts in 
continued uncertainty. 

But whatever is well and sufficiently proved 
in one age, remains not less certainly proved 
in the next, while all the evidences continue 
in the same state. Indeed, as we have before 
remarked, historical evidence often greatly in- 
creases in clearness and certainty by the lapse 
of time. If in the time of Leo X. it was certain 
that Augustus ruled the Roman world sixteen 
hundred years before that period, we have no 
need to deduct any thing from our persuasion 
of the truth of the fact, on account of the four 
centuries which have since elapsed. On the 
contrary the proof of it is much greater, both 
in its amount and in its clearness, now, than 
it was then. 

The proof of the genuineness of books, even 
if it does not gather particles of evidence, re- 
mains from age to age unimpaired. Nor is 
the proof of the genuineness of modern works 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 185 

more satisfactory, though it may be more 
abundant, than that of ancient books. We 
could not be persuaded that the Paradise Lost 
was written in the last century by some ob- 
scure scribbler; nor would it be a whit less 
absurd to suppose that the iEneid was com- 
posed in the tenth century, or the Iliad at any 
time subsequent to the invasion of Greece by 
Xerxes. 

The degree of certainty attainable on any 
point of ancient history or literature is regu- 
lated, not by mere distance of time, but by the 
state of the world at the period in question ; 
especially by the contraction or the diffusion of 
general knowledge. This certainty therefore 
rises and falls, becomes bright or obscure, alter- 
nately, from age to age, quite irrespectively 
of distance of years. In sailing up the stream 
of time, mists and darkness rest upon the land- 
scape at a comparatively early stage of our 
progress ; but as we ascend, light breaks upon 
the scene in the full splendour of a noon-day 
sun ; scarcely an object rests in obscurity, and 
whatever is most prominent and important, 
may be discerned in its minutest parts. 



186 PRINCIPLES OF 



III. 



The validity of evidenee in proof of remote 
facts is not affected, either for the better or the 
worse, by the weight of the consequences that 
may happen to depend upon them. 

No principle can be much more obviously 
true than this ; and if the reader chooses to 
call it a truism, he is welcome to do so : and 
yet none is more often disregarded. With the 
same sort of inconsistency which impels us to 
measure the punishment of an offence, not by 
its turpitude, but by the quantity of injury it 
has occasioned, we are instinctively inclined to 
think slender evidence good enough in proof of 
a point of no importance ; but the best evi- 
dence feeble, if the fact in question involves 
great and pressing interests. We are apt to 
think of evidence as if it were a cord or a bar, 
which, though it may sustain a certain weight, 
must needs snap with a greater. But the 
slightest reflection will dissipate a prejudice so 
utterly groundless and absurd. 

It is very true that the degree of care, dili- 
gence, and attention, with which we examine 
evidence, may well be proportioned to the im- 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 187 

portance of the consequences involved in the 
decision. A juryman ought indeed to give his 
utmost attention to the testimony that may 
sentence a prisoner to a month's confinement ; 
but if he has the common feelings of humanity, 
he will exercise a tenfold caution if life or 
death is to be the issue of his verdict. This is 
all very proper ; but no one capable of reason- 
ing justly would think that if the proof of guilt 
in the former case has been thoroughly ex- 
amined, and is quite conclusive, it can become 
a jot less convincing if it should be found that 
a new interpretation of the law makes the 
offence capital. 

The genuineness of the satires and epistles 
of Horace is allowed by all scholars to be un- 
questionable ; and any one who has examined 
the evidence in this instance, must call him an 
impudent sophist who should attempt to raise 
a controversy on the subject. Would the case 
be otherwise than it is, even though the proof 
of the genuineness of these writings should 
overthrow our happy constitution, or make it 
the duty of every man to resign the whole of 
his property to his servant ? 

The evidence of the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures 
has, for no other reason except the conse- 
quences involved in an admission of their 
truth, been treated with a flagrant disregard 



188 PRINCIPLES OF 

of equity and common sense, to which no pa- 
rallel can be adduced. The poems of Anacreon, 
the tragedies of Sophocles, the plays of Te- 
rence, the epistles of Pliny, are safe from all 
imputation of spuriousness or material corrup- 
tion ; but evidence ten times greater in its 
quantity, variety, and force, supports the 
genuineness of the poems of Isaiah, and the 
epistles of Paul. 

This violation of common equity in relation 
to the Scriptures has been favoured by the 
mere circumstance of their having to be con- 
tinually defended. It matters not how impu- 
dently false an imputation may be ; the reply, 
though in the most absolute sense conclusive, 
begets almost as much suspicion as it dissi- 
pates. Herein consists all the strength of 
infidel writings ; they call for a defence of that 
which is attacked, and this defence seems to 
imply that the question may fairly be argued, 
and that it is in some degree doubtful. Let 
the genuineness of the most indubitable of the 
classics be boldly questioned in a popular 
style, and defended in a form level to the mode 
of attack, and level also to the ignorance of the 
middle and lower orders, and the result would 
produce quite as many cases of doubt, as of 
conviction. 

What course ought to be pursued, or which 
alternative adopted, if a case should arise 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 189 

wherein evidence intrinsically good, should 
seem to support a narrative palpably incre- 
dible and contradictory to common sense, is a 
question that may well be left undecided till 
such a case actually presents itself. No such 
incongruity taxes our acceptance of the Jewish 
and Christian Scriptures ; for the miracles 
they report, wrought for purposes so wise and 
benign, accord with every notion we can ante- 
cedently form of the divine character and 
government. 



IV. 



A calculation of actual instances, taken from 
almost any class of facts, will prove that seem- 
ingly good evidence is incomparably more often 
true than false. 

By evidence seemingly good is meant such 
as, after an ordinary degree of examination, 
does not appear to be liable to any decided 
suspicion. However much of falsification and 
of error there may be in the world, there is 
yet so great a predominance of truth, that he 
who believes indiscriminately will be in the 
right a thousand times to one oftener than he 
who doubts indiscriminately. Habitual seep- 



190 PRINCIPLES OF 

ticism implies almost perpetual error. Indeed, 
either to believe by habit, or to doubt by habit, 
is the symptom of a feeble or diseased mind. 
But the former is vastly more congruous to the 
actual condition of mankind, and to the ordi- 
nary course of human affairs, is more safe, 
is more reasonable, than the latter. 

No man, unless his mind is verging towards 
insanity, acts in the daily occasions of common 
life on the principles of scepticism ; for with 
such a rule of action in his head, he must re- 
treat from human society, and take up his 
abode in a tub. The sceptic is not only an 
anomalous being among his fellows, but his 
scepticism is an anomaly even in his own con- 
duct ; it is a madness on one point, which of 
all kinds of lunacy least admits of cure. 

Adherence to truth is as much an element 
of human nature as the love of kindred : and 
though the operation of both principles is 
liable to interruptions, such deviations from 
the impulses of nature must always be held to 
arise from the influence of some specific in- 
ducement. Wilful, difficult, and hazardous 
falsifications, prompted by no assignable mo- 
tive of interest or ambition, if indeed such are 
ever attempted, need not be included in any 
calculation of probabilities. If, therefore, in 
listening to a professed narrative of facts, we 
have reason to feel secure against the most 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 191 

common motives of deliberate falsehood ; if, on 
the contrary, the veracity of the narrator is 
guaranteed by the circumstances in which he 
is placed ; if, moreover, his testimony is con- 
firmed by a fair measure of independent evi- 
dence ; if it is uncontradicted by testimony of 
equal value ; and if the whole case has been 
again and again scrupulously and anxiously 
examined by persons of every cast of mind — 
then, and in such a case, if indeed a remaining 
possibility of delusion exists, it is so incalcu- 
lably small, that to take it up in preference to 
the positive evidence, is an infatuation of the 
extremest folly or the extremest perversity. 

Now let the principle above-mentioned be 
applied to the existing remains of ancient 
literature. Among the works brought to light 
and printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies, there were not a few, though few in 
comparison with the whole, which were very 
presently discovered to be spurious produc- 
tions — fraudulent imitations of the style of 
ancient authors. Though at first sight they 
seemed to possess a claim to genuineness, they 
were soon found to be destitute of all that 
external evidence which is collected from the 
quotations of subsequent writers ; or a mani- 
fest failure in the attempted imitation of style, 
or some oversight in phrases or allusions, 
served fully to expose the deception. All these 



192 PRINCIPLES OF 

cases are therefore excluded from the intention 
of our proposition ; for they do not possess 
evidence of authenticity that is seemingly good. 

Besides these obviously spurious works, 
there were a few whose claim to genuineness 
was good enough to justify some controversy, 
and which yet find advocates among scholars ; 
though the majority of critics has returned a 
verdict of spuriousness. Now these doubtful 
works, inasmuch as their genuineness is not 
generally acknowledged, may also be excluded 
from our proposition ; for the evidence in their 
favour can barely be called seemingly good. 

Now after these exclusions have been made, 
who that is acquainted with the positive evi- 
dence that supports the genuineness of the 
unquestioned portion of ancient literature — 
who that has given attention to the contro- 
versies which have been carried on relative to 
doubtful works, and has seen the assiduity, the 
acuteness, the vast learning, the eager perti- 
nacity of research, that have been brought to 
bear upon such questions, will dare to affirm 
that there are probably many ancient works, 
generally supposed by scholars to be genuine, 
which are in fact spurious ? Every person at 
all competent to form an opinion on the subject 
will grant, that if there be indeed a chance that 
some of the standard classic authors, whose 
genuineness has never been doubted, are after 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 193 

all, spurious productions, this chance is incal- 
culably small — so small, as to leave nothing 
but flimsy paradoxes and perverse absurdities 
to those who, on such ground, should attempt 
to breed suspicion against them. 



V. 



The strength of evidence is not proportioned 
to its simplicity, or perspicuity ; or to the ease 
with which it may be apprehended by all per- 
sons. 

In the mathematical sciences a great num- 
ber of propositions are so simple and so readily 
demonstrated, that all to whom they are ex- 
plained may be supposed to carry away an 
equally clear apprehension of their truth ; 
but the higher departments of these sciences 
abound with propositions which, though not at 
all less certain than the simplest axioms, are 
demonstrated by a process which it may re- 
quire hours, or even days to pass through. 
And among those who actually attend to all 
the parts of such a process, there will be a 
very wide difference in the kind and degree of 
conviction obtained of the truth of such propo- 
sitions. Some, though they firmly believe the 



194 



PRINCIPLES OF 



demonstration to be sound and perfect, both 
because they have examined, one by one, the 
links of which it consists, and because they 
know it is assented to by calculators more 
competent than themselves, are quite unable, 
either for want of habit or of capacity, to com- 
prehend the demonstration ; or to perceive, by 
a single act of thought, the connection of the 
parts, and the real oneness of the whole. They 
have walked in the dark over the ground, 
groping their way from step to step, and are 
satisfied that they have arrived by a right path 
at a certain point, though they cannot survey 
the route. 

But another calculator, long practised in 
all the modes of abstract reasoning, expert in 
leaping with certainty over intervals which 
others must slowly pace, and capable, by the 
force of native vigour and comprehension of 
mind, of holding in unison a multitude of con- 
nected particulars, will see the certainty of 
such operose demonstrations with as much ease 
as another finds in comprehending an elemen- 
tary proposition. Yet the proposition which 
perhaps not fifty persons in Europe can, with 
full intelligence, know to be true, is actually as 
true as the axiom which the school-boy com- 
prehends in a moment. 

Now all evidence on questions of antiquity, 
whether historical or literary, like an operose 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 195 

demonstration in mathematical science, is more 
or less remote from the intellectual habits and 
usual acquirements even of moderately well 
educated persons ; and very far remote from 
the mental range of the uninstructed orders of 
society. The strength of our convictions, in 
matters of fact remote in time or place, must 
bear proportion to the extent and exactness of 
our knowledge, and to the consequent fulness 
and vividness of our ideas of that class of 
objects to which the question relates. By long 
and intimate familiarity with ancient authors, 
and by an extensive acquaintance with the 
relics of antiquity of all kinds, the imagination 
of the scholar bears him back to distant ages, 
with a full and distinct consciousness of the 
reality of those scenes and persons. Nor is this 
ideal converse with remote objects like that 
often produced by fictitious narratives ; for 
such excursions of the fancy in unreal regions 
are disjoined from the rest of our ideas and 
convictions 5 but the ideal presence of an ac- 
complished mind in the distant scenes of history 
is firmly, and by innumerable ties, united to 
the knowledge of present realities. The ima- 
gination does not flit on the wing of a fantasy 
from the real to an unreal world ; but tracks 
its way with a steady step on solid ground, 
from times present to times past; and the 



196 PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 

intelligent conviction of truth travels up to 
the farthest point of its progress. 

To those who are thus conversant with 
history, all facts or events, literary or historical, 
if satisfactorily attested, are held in the mind 
with a firmness of persuasion which cannot, 
by any statements or any reasonings, however 
conclusive or perspicuous, be imparted to other 
minds ; because neither its own powers of 
comprehension, nor its variety of knowledge, 
can be so imparted. 



CHAPTER VII. 



RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE WHICH 
SUPPORTS THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTI- 
CITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 



Some copies of Quintilian's Institutions of 
Oratory, very much corrupted and mutilated 
by the ignorance or presumption of copyists, 
were known in Italy before the fifteenth 
century. But in 1414, while the council of 
Constance was sitting, Poggio, a learned 
Italian, was commissioned by the promoters of 
learning to proceed to that place, in search 
of ancient manuscripts, believed to be pre- 
served in the monasteries of the city and its 
vicinity. His researches were rewarded by 
discovering in the monastery of St. Gal, be- 
neath long neglected lumber, a perfect copy of 
the Institutions. 

The manuscript was soon subjected to the 
examination of critics, collated with existing 



198 



RELATIVE STRENGTH 



copies, compared with the references of an- 
cient authors, and ascertained to be genuine, 
and essentially uncorrupted. Yet the substance 
of the evidence on which this decision rests 
might be comprised in a page. 

The abridged history of Rome, by Pater- 
culus, has been preserved only in a single 
manuscript ; and that one so much corrupted, 
that critics have despaired of restoring the 
purity of the text. And it happens that this 
history is quoted by only one ancient author — 
Priscian, a grammarian of the sixth century. 
Yet with all this scantiness of evidence, and 
this corruption of the only existing copy, the 
genuineness of the work is fully admitted by 
scholars. The style, the allusions, the coinci- 
dences, are such as to satisfy all who are com- 
petent to estimate this sort of proof. But if 
this proof were formally set down, and even if 
it were ever so much expanded, it must look 
very meagre ; and, to uninformed readers, 
seem slender as a thread, and insufficient to 
sustain any important consequence. But 
scholars, in reading the book, feel that sort of 
conviction of its genuineness, which is expe- 
rienced by a traveller, who has spent his life 
in passing from country to country, con- 
versing with men of all nations ; when he 
meets foreigners in the streets of London, he 
does not need to look at passports to know 



OF EVIDENCE. 



199 



whether these strangers, whom individually he 
has never before seen, are Swedes, or Hunga- 
rians, or Armenians, or Hindoos, or West In- 
dians ; the commonest observer scarcely hesi- 
tates on such occasions ; but the old traveller 
feels a conviction which mocks at formal 
proof. 

Excepting a few doubtful cases, the genuine- 
ness of classic authors is intuitively perceived 
by scholars, with a vividness and distinctness 
that is not at all dependent upon the direct 
and assignable evidence which must be ad- 
duced in reply to objectors. On this ground 
it may be affirmed, that if only a single manu- 
script, containing the Acts of the Apostles, and 
the Epistles of Paul, had been preserved, and 
if no quotations from these writings were to 
be found, competent and unprejudiced scholars 
(no practical consequences being implied in 
the question) could never doubt that these 
writings are in fact what they seem and pro- 
fess to be. Besides the minute and inde- 
scribable characters of genuineness which 
meet the instructed eye in every sentence, an 
argument derived from the internal accord- 
ances of the history and the letters, as ex- 
hibited by Paley in his Horse Paulina?, must be 
held to be conclusive, even in the supposed 
destitution of all external proof. 

But although the external proof of the 



200 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

genuineness of ancient books is, in a large pro- 
portion of instances, superfluous, it must not 
be disregarded ; especially as it is the only 
evidence which can be fully presented to the 
apprehensions of general readers. Yet even 
this, when adduced in its particulars, is seldom 
duly appreciated ; nor is it likely to produce 
its due impression, unless viewed in its place 
among facts of the same class. We propose, 
therefore, without troubling the reader with 
details which are to be found at large in many 
well-known works, and which he may be sup- 
posed to have in recollection, or within his 
reach, to direct him to a few principal points 
of comparison between the classical and sacred 
writings, in relation to the proof of genuine- 
ness and authenticity. 

The Jewish and Christian Scriptures may 
then be compared with the works of the 
Greek and Roman authors in the following 
particulars. — 

1. The number of manuscripts which passed 
down through the middle ages. 

About fifteen manuscripts of the history of 
Herodotus are known to critics : and of these, 
several are not of higher antiquity than the 
middle of the fifteenth century. One in the 
French king's library (there are in that collec- 
tion five or six) appears to belong to the 



OF EVIDENCE. 



201 



twelfth century : there is one in the Vatican, 
and one in the Florentine library, attributed 
to the tenth century: one in the library of 
Emanuel college, Cambridge, formerly the 
property of Archbishop Sancroft, which is be- 
lieved to be very ancient: the libraries of 
Oxford and Vienna contain also MSS. of this 
author. This amount of copies may be taken 
as an average number of ancient manuscripts 
of the classic authors ; some few have many 
more ; but many have fewer. 

To mention any number as that of the exist- 
ing ancient manuscripts, either of the Hebrew 
or Greek Scriptures, would be impossible. It 
is enough to say that, on the revival of learn- 
ing, copies of the Scriptures were found wher- 
ever any books had been preserved. In ex- 
amining the catalogues of conventual libraries, 
such as they were in the fifteenth century, the 
larger proportion is usually found to consist 
of the works of the fathers, or of the ecclesias- 
tical writers of the middle ages : next in 
amount are the Scriptures, sometimes entire; 
more often the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, 
or the Psalms, separately ; and last and fewest 
are the classics, of which seldom more than 
three or four are found in a list of one or two 
hundred volumes. The number of ancient 
manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, or 



202 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

parts of it, hitherto examined by editors, is 
nearly five hundred. 

If in the case of a classic author, twenty 
manuscripts, or even five, are deemed amply 
sufficient (and sometimes one, as we have 
seen, is relied upon) it is evident that many 
hundreds are quite redundant for the mere 
purposes of argument. The importance of so 
great a number of copies consists in the am- 
plitude of the means thereby afforded of re- 
storing the text to its pristine purity ; for the 
various readings collected from so many 
sources, if they do not always place the true 
reading beyond doubt, afford an absolute secu- 
rity against extensive corruptions. 

2. The antiquity of some existing manu- 
scripts. 

A Virgil (already mentioned) in the Vatican, 
claims an antiquity as high as the fourth cen- 
tury : there are a few similar instances ; but 
generally the existing copies of the classics 
are attributed to periods between the tenth 
and fifteenth centuries. In this respect the 
Scriptures are not at all inferior to the clas- 
sics. There are extant copies of the Pen- 
tateuch, on no slight grounds supposed to 
have been written in the second or third cen- 
tury : some copies of the Gospels belonging 



OP EVIDENCE. 203 

to the third or fourth, and several of the 
entire New Testament, unquestionably made 
before the eighth. But the actual age of exist- 
ing manuscripts is a matter of more curiosity 
than importance, since proof of another kind 
carries us with certainty far beyond the date 
of any existing parchments. 

3. The extent of surface over which copies 
were diffused at an early date. 

The works of the most celebrated of the 
Greek authors were certainly found in the 
libraries of opulent persons in all parts of 
Greece, and in many of the colonies, soon after 
their first publication ; and a century or two 
later they were read wherever the language 
was spoken. But a contraction of this sphere 
of diffusion took place as the eastern empire 
was gradually driven in upon its centre ; and 
during a long period these works were found 
only in the countries and islands within a 
short distance of Constantinople. As for the 
Latin classics, how widely soever they might 
have been diffused during three or four cen- 
turies, tjbe incursions of the northern nations, 
and the consequent obscuration of learning in 
the west, very nearly produced their utter 
annihilation. Many of these authors were 
lost sight of for several centuries. 

It is a matter of unquestioned history that 



204 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

the Jews, with their books, had spread them- 
selves through most countries of Asia, of south- 
ern Europe, and of northern Africa, before the 
commencement of the Christian era ; nor is it 
less certain that wherever Judaism existed, 
Christianity rapidly followed it. Carried for- 
ward by their own zeal, or driven on by per- 
secutions, the Christians of the first and 
second centuries passed beyond the limits of 
the Roman empire, and founded churches 
among* nations scarcely known to the masters 
of the world. Nor were the Christian Scrip- 
tures merely carried to great distances in dif- 
ferent directions ; they were scattered through 
the mass of society in every nation to an ex- 
tent greatly exceeding the ordinary circulation 
of books in those ages : those books were not 
in the hands of the opulent, and of the studious 
merely ; but were possessed by innumerable 
individuals, who, with an ardour beyond the 
strength of mundane passions, valued, pre- 
served, and reproduced them. And while many 
copies were hoarded in secret by individuals, 
others were the common property of societies, 
and were, by continual repetition in public, im- 
printed on the memories of all their members. 
The wide, and, if the expression may be 
used, the deep and full circulation of the 
Scriptures, secured them not merely from ex- 
tinction, but from corruption. These books 



OF EVIDENCE. 205 

were never included within the sphere of any 
one centre of power, civil or ecclesiastical. 
They were secreted, and they were expanded 
beyond the utmost reach of tyranny or fraud. 

4. The importance attached to the books by 
their possessors. 

In a certain sense the religion of the Greeks 
and Romans was embodied in the works of 
their poets ; but the religious fervour of the 
people never linked itself with those works, as 
the depositories of their faith : books were the 
possession solely of the educated classes ; 
they were prized by the intellectual as the 
means of enjoyment. But Judaism first, and 
Christianity not less, were religions of histo- 
rical facts : the doctrines and the laws were 
only inferences arising naturally from the 
belief of certain memorable events, and from 
the expectation of other events, yet to take 
place : the record of the past was at once the 
rule of duty, and the charter of hope. Their 
books were to the dispersed and hated Jews 
the solace of wounded national pride : to the 
persecuted Christians theirs were a title to " a 
better country," and a support under present 
privations and sufferings. If they are valued 
by the Christian of modern times who believes 
them to be divine ; they were valued with a 
far deeper sense by the early Christians, who, 



206 



RELATIVE STRENGTH 



from the evidence of frequent miracles, knew 
them to be indeed the word of Him by whom 
all things consist. 

The regard entertained by the Jews for 
their sacred books was of a kind altogether 
without parallel : the reverence of the Chris- 
tians for theirs, if not more profound, was 
more empassioned, and produced a sentiment 
perfectly unlike any with which one might 
seek to compare it : the fondness of a learned 
Greek or Roman for his books, was but as 
the delight of an, infant with his toys. 

To this deep feeling towards the sacred 
writings in the minds of Christians was owing, 
not only the concealment and preservation of 
copies in times of active persecution, but the 
assiduous reproduction of them by persons of 
all ranks who found leisure to occupy them- 
selves in a work so meritorious, and so con- 
soling. 

5. The respect paid to them by copyists of 
later ages. 

We have seen that throughout the middle 
ages, though nothing like a widely diffused 
taste for the classic authors existed, yet there 
were at all times, here and there, individuals 
by whom they were read and valued, and by 
whose agency and influence so much care was 
bestowed upon their preservation as served to 



OF EVIDENCE. 207 

ensure a safe transmission of them to modern 
times. But that the Latin authors at any 
time after the decline of the western empire 
received the benefit of a careful and competent 
collation of copies, there is little reason to 
believe. Of the Greek authors there were 
issued new recensions from Alexandria, while 
that city continued to be the seat of learning ; 
and some measure of the same care was ex- 
ercised by the scholars of Constantinople ; yet 
even there the celebrated works of antiquity 
suffered a great degree of neglect during the 
last four centuries of the eastern empire. 

But in this respect, as well as in those 
already mentioned, the text of the Scriptures, 
Jewish and Christian, has an incomparable 
advantage over that of the classic authors. 
The scrupulosity and servile minuteness of the 
Jewish copyists in transcribing the Hebrew 
Scriptures are well known ; in a literal sense 
of the phrase? " not a tittle of the law " was 
slighted : not only, as with the Greeks, was 
the number of verses in each book noted, but 
the number of words and of letters ; and the 
central letter of each book being distinguished, 
beeame, as a point of calculation, the key-stone 
of that portion of the volume. This unexam- 
pled exactness affords security enough for the 
safe transmission of the text ; and if there 
were any grounds for the suspicion that the 



208 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

Rabbis, to weaken the evidence adduced 
against them by the Christians, wilfully cor- 
rupted some particular passages, we have 
other security against the consequences of 
such an attempt. 

The flame of true piety was never extin- 
guished in the Christian community ; nor can 
any century, or half century of the middle ages 
be named, in which it may not be proved that 
there were individuals by whom the books of 
the New Testament were known and regarded 
with a heartfelt reverence and affection. There 
were besides multitudes in the religious houses 
who, influenced only by a purblind super- 
stition, thought it a work of superlative merit 
to execute a fair copy of the Scriptures, or any 
part of them ; and all the puerile adornments 
which the arts of the times afforded, were 
lavished to express the veneration of the scribe 
for the subject of his labours. 

And more than this ; — the Scriptures, espe- 
cially in the first eight centuries, underwent 
several careful and skilful revisions in the 
hands of learned and able men* who, collating 
all the copies they could procure, restored the 
text wherever errors had been admitted. The 
prodigious labours of Origen in restoring the 
text of the Septuagint version have been often 
described. The fathers of the Western, the 
African, and the Asiatic churches — especially 



OF EVIDENCE. 



209 



Jerome, Eusebius, and Augustine, with such 
means as they severally possessed, stopped 
the progress of accidental corruption in the 
sacred text, by instituting new comparisons 
of existing copies. 

6. The wide separation, or the open hos- 
tility of those by whom these books were 
preserved. 

This is a circumstance of the utmost signi- 
ficance, and if not peculiar to the Jewish and 
Christian Scriptures, yet belonging to them 
in a degree which places their uncorrupted 
preservation on a basis incomparably more 
extended and substantial than that of any 
other ancient writings. The Latin authors 
were barely dispersed over the Roman world, 
and never in the keeping of separated nations, 
or hostile parties. The Greek classics were 
indeed, to some extent, in the hands of the 
western nations, as well as of the Greeks, 
during the middle ages. And, if any weight 
can be attached to the fact, some of these 
works were also in the keeping of the Ara- 
bians : but they were never the subject of 
mutual appeal by rival communities. 

The Hebrew nation has, almost through 
the whole period of its history, been divided 
both by local separation, and by schisms. 
Probably the Israelites of India, and certainly 



210 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

the Samaritans, have been the keepers of the 
books of Moses apart from the Jews, during a 
period that reaches beyond the date of authen- 
tic profane history. In times somewhat more 
recent the Jews have not only been separated by 
distance, but divided by at least one complete 
schism — that on the subject of the Rabbinical 
traditions, between the sect of the Karaites 
and the mass of the nation. 

The reproach of the Christian church, its 
divisions, has been, in part at least, redeemed 
by the security thereby afforded for the uncor- 
rupted transmission of its records. Almost 
the earliest Christian apologists avail them- 
selves of this argument in proof of the inte- 
grity of the sacred text. Augustine especially 
urged it against those who endeavoured to 
impeach its authority : there never was a time 
when an attempt on any extensive scale, even 
if otherwise practicable, to alter the text would 
not have raised an outcry in some quarter. 
From the earliest times the common rule of 
faith was held up for the purposes of defence 
or aggression by the church and by some dis- 
sentient party. Afterwards the partition of the 
Christian community into two hostile bodies, 
of which Rome and Constantinople were the 
heads, afforded security against a general 
consent to effect alterations of the text. And 
in still later ages a few uncorrupted commu- 



OF EVIDENCE. 211 

nities existing within the bounds of the Romish 
church, became the guardians of the sacred 
volume. 

7. The visible effects of these books from 
age to age. 

On this point also the history of the Greek 
and Latin classics affords only a faint semblance 
of that evidence by means of which the ex- 
istence and influence of the Scriptures may be 
traced from the earliest times after their pub- 
lication through all successive ages. The 
Greek and Latin authors indicated their con- 
tinued existence no where beyond the walls 
of schools and halls of learning. During a 
full thousand years the world saw them not, 
governments did not embody them in laws or 
institutions, the people did not bless them. 
They were less known, less thought of 
abroad, than the ashes of the dead, than the 
bones, teeth, blood, tears, and rags of the 
saints. 

How different are the facts that present 
themselves on the side of the Jewish and 
Christian Scriptures ! The Jews, in the sight 
of all nations, have, through a well known and 
uncontested period of two thousand five hun- 
dred years, exhibited a living model of the 
venerable volume which was once delivered to 
them, and which still they cherish. And though 



212 



RELATIVE STRENGTH 



long since stripped of all that was splendid or 
cheering in their institutions, and though rent 
away from the visible part of their worship, 
and though blind, for the most part, to the 
moral grandeur of their law and of their pro- 
phets, they hold unbroken the crust or shell 
of the system described in their books. What- 
ever in their religion was of less value, what- 
ever served only to cover and protect the 
vital parts, whatever was the most peculiar 
and the least important, whatever might have 
been shed without damage or essential change, 
has been retained by these wanderers ; while 
ail that was precious, except the sacred books, 
lias been lost. 

The Christian Scriptures have marked their 
way through the field of time, not in the 
regions of religion only, or of learning, or of 
politics ; but in the entire condition, moral, 
intellectual, and political, of all the western 
nations. The public history of no period since 
the first publication of these writings is at all 
intelligible without the supposition of their 
existence and diffusion. If we look back 
along the past eighteen centuries, we watch 
the progress of an influence, sometimes mark- 
ing its presence in streams of blood, sometimes 
in fires, sometimes by the fall of idol temples, 
sometimes by the rearing of edifices decked 
with new symbols ; nor can the distant and 



OF EVIDENCE. 



213 



mighty movement be explained otherwise than 
by knowing that the books we now hold and 
venerate were then first working the over- 
throw of the old and obstinate evils of idolatry. 
It is needless to say that the history of Europe 
in all subsequent periods has implied, by a 
thousand forms of shameless hypocrisy, and by 
the constancy of a few sincere Christians, the 
continued existence of the Christian Scrip- 
tures. 

8. The body of references and quotations. 

The successive references of the Greek au- 
thors one to another, though amply sufficient 
in most instances to establish the antiquity of 
the works quoted, furnish imperfect aid in as- 
certaining the purity of the existing text, or 
in amending it where apparently faulty. A 
very large number of these references is 
merely allusive, consisting only of the men- 
tion of an author's name, with some vague 
citation of his meaning. And even in those 
authors who make copious and verbal quota- 
tions, such as Strabo, Plutarch, Hesychius, 
Aulus Gellius, Stobaeus, Marcellinus, Photius, 
Suidas, and Eustathius, a lax method of quo- 
tation in many instances robs such quotations 
of much of their value for the purposes of 
criticism. Yet after every deduction of this 
kind has been made, the reader of the classics 



214 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

feels an irresistible conviction that this net- 
work of mutual or successive references could 
result from no machination, no contrivance, 
from nothing but reality ; and that it affords 
a proof, never to be refuted, of the genuine- 
ness of the great mass of ancient literature. 

But with the Jewish and Christian Scrip- 
tures this kind of evidence, reaching far beyond 
the mere proof of antiquity and genuineness, 
is ample and precise enough to establish the 
integrity of the entire text of the books in 
question. These writings were not simply 
succeeded by a literature of a similar cast ; 
but they created a body of literature altoge- 
ther devoted to their elucidation ; and this 
elucidation took every imaginable form of 
occasional comment upon single passages, of 
argument upon certain topics, requiring nume- 
rous scattered quotations, and of complete 
annotations, in which nearly the whole of the 
original author is repeated. From the Rab- 
binical paraphrases, and from the works of the 
Christian writers of the first seven centuries 
(to come later is unnecessary) the whole text 
of the Scriptures might have been recovered 
if the originals had since perished. 

If any one is so utterly uninformed as to 
suppose that this kind of evidence is open to 
uncertainty or admits of refutatiqn, let him, 
if he has access to a good English library, turn 



OF EVIDENCE. 215 

to writers of all classes since the days of Eliza- 
beth, and see how many allusions to Shake- 
spear, and how many verbal quotations from 
his plays, and how many commentaries upon 
portions or upon the whole of them he can find ; 
and then ask himself if there remains the pos- 
sibility of doubting that these dramas, such in 
the main as they now are, were in existence 
at the accession of James I. If these quota- 
tions and allusions were in amount a fifth or 
a tenth part of what they actually are, the 
proof would not be really less conclusive 
than it is. 

9. Early versions. 

For the 'purpose of establishing the anti- 
quity, genuineness and integrity of the Scrip- 
tures, no other proof need be adduced than 
that afforded by the existing ancient versions. 
For when accordant translations of the same 
writings, in several unconnected languages, 
and in languages which have long ceased to 
be vernacular, are in existence, every other 
kind of evidence is manifestly superfluous. 

In this respect hardly any comparison be- 
tween the classic authors and the Scriptures 
can be instituted. For scarcely any thing that 
deserves to be called a translation of any of 
them, executed at a very early period after their 
first publication, is extant. In fact it was the 



216 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

high importance attached by the Jews and the 
early Christians to the Scriptures, and the 
earnest desire of the poor and unlearned to 
possess in their own tongue the words of eter- 
nal life, which suggested the idea and intro- 
duced the practice of making complete and 
faithful translations, 

The Old Testament exists, independently of 
the original text, in the Chaldee paraphrases or 
Targums, in the Septuagint, or Greek version; 
in the translations of Aquila, of Symmachus, 
and of Theodosian ; in the Syriac and the 
Latin, or Vulgate versions ; in the Arabic, and 
in the Ethiopic ; not to mention others of 
somewhat later date. 

The New Testament has been conveyed to 
modern times, in whole or in part, in the 
Peschito, or Syriac translation, in the Cop- 
tic, the Sahidic, in several Arabic versions, 
in the Ethiopic, the Armenian, the Persian, 
the Gothic, and in the Latin versions. 

10. The vernacular extinction of the lan- 
guages or idioms in which these books were 
written. 

To write Attic Greek was the ambition and 
affectation of several of the Constantinopo- 
litan writers of the third and fourth centuries ; 
and to acquire a style of pure latinity, was 
assiduously aimed at by several writers of the 



OF EVIDENCE. 217 

middle ages ; and a few of them so far suc- 
ceeded in this sort of imitation that they 
executed some forgeries on a small scale 
which would hardly have been detected if 
they had not wanted external proof. 

But the pure Hebrew, such as it existed be- 
fore the captivity, so entirely ceased to be ver- 
nacular during the removal of the Jews from 
their land, that the original Scriptures needed 
to be interpreted to the people ever after ; nor 
is there any evidence that the power of writing 
in the primitive language was affected by the 
Rabbis, whose commentaries are composed in 
the dialects vernacular in their times. The 
Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament, 
which differs considerably from the style of the 
classic authors, and even from that of the Sep- 
tuagint, to which it is most nearly allied, very 
soon passed out of use ; for the later Christian 
writers in the Greek language had, in most 
instances, formed their style before their con- 
version ; or at least affected a style different 
from that of the apostles and evangelists. The 
idiom of the New Testament, in which phrases 
or forms, borrowed from almost all the sur- 
rounding languages occur, resulted from the 
very peculiar education and circumstances of 
the writers, which were such as to make their 
dialect, in many minute particulars, unlike 



218 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

any other; and such as very soon became 
extinct. 



11. The means of comparison with spurious 
works ; or with works intended to share the 
reputation acquired by others. 

Imitations, whether good or bad, serve to 
set originals in a more advantageous light. 
The former, by calling into activity the utmost 
acumen and diligence of critics, by which 
means the evidence of genuine writings is 
cleared from suspicion and obscurity ; the 
latter, by serving as a foil or contrast, exhibit- 
ing more satisfactorily the dignity, consis- 
tency, and native simplicity of what is genuine. 

Several good imitations of the style of Cicero 
have appeared in different ages, and have called 
for so much acuteness on the part of critics as 
has materially strengthened the evidence of 
his genuine works. In like manner the cele- 
brated epistles of Phalaris excited a controversy 
the beneficial result of which was not so much 
the settling of the question in debate, as the 
concentration of powerful and accomplished 
minds upon the general subject of the genuine- 
ness of ancient books, by means of which other 
remains of antiquity received the implicit sanc- 
tion of retaining their claims, after coming 
within the reach of so fiery an ordeal. 



OF EVIDENCE. 219 

Many bad imitations of classic authors have 
been executed, and some such are still extant, 
and sometimes appended to the genuine works. 
No one can read such spurious pieces imme- 
diately after becoming familiar with the ge- 
nuine, without receiving from the contrast a 
forcible impression of the truth and reality of 
the latter. The life of Homer, for example, 
usually appended to the history of Herodotus, 
and claiming his name, though it has something 
of his manner, presents a contrast which few 
readers can fail to observe. 

No good imitations, either of the Jewish or 
Christian Scriptures, have ever appeared ; but 
in the place of that elaborate investigation 
which the existence of such productions would 
have called forth, other motives of the strong- 
est kind have prompted a fuller and more 
laborious examination of the Scriptures than 
any other writings have endured. 

Many bad imitations of the style of the 
Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, have been attempted, and are still in 
existence ; and they are such as afford the 
most striking illustration that can be imagined 
of the proper difference in simplicity, dignity, 
and consistency, between the genuine and the 
spurious. The apocryphal books (which how- 
ever are not, most of them, properly termed 
spurious) afford this advantageous contrast to 



220 



RELATIVE STRENGTH 



the writings of the Old Testament ; and the 
spurious gospels, passing under the names of 
Peter, Judas, Nicodemus, Thomas, Barnabas, 
&c. to those of the New. 

The preservation of these latter worthless 
productions to modern times, is rather an 
extraordinary circumstance, and affords proof 
of a fact, the knowledge of which is im- 
portant in questions of literary antiquity, 
namely, that there were many copyists in the 
middle ages who wrote, and wrote, mecha- 
nically, whatever came in their way, without 
the exercise of any discrimination. Now there 
is more satisfaction in knowing that ancient 
books have come down through a blind and 
unthinking medium of this sort, than there 
would be in believing that we possess only 
what the copyists, in the exercise of an as- 
sumed censorship, deemed worthy to be de- 
livered to posterity. It is far better that we 
should, by accident and ignorance, have lost 
some valuable works, and that, by the same 
means, some worthless ones should have been 
preserved, than that the results of accident and 
ignorance should have been excluded by the 
constant exercise of a power of selection. 
Nothing more pernicious can be imagined than 
the existence, from age to age, of a reverend 
synod of copyists sagely determining what 
works should be perpetuated, and what suifered 



OF EVIDENCE. 



221 



to expire. Happily for literature and religion, 
there were in the monasteries numbers of un- 
thinking labourers, who, in selecting the sub- 
ject of their toils, seemed to have followed the 
easy rule of taking — the next book on the shelf ! 

12. The strength of the inference from the 
genuineness to the credibility of the books. 

Nothing can be more simple or certain than 
the inference drawn from the acknowledged 
antiquity and genuineness of an historical 
work, in proof of the credibility of the narra- 
tive it contains. If it be proved that Cicero's 
orations against Catiline, and that Sallust's 
history of the Catiline war, were written by 
the persons whose names they bear ; or if it 
were only proved that these compositions were 
extant and well known as early as the age of 
Augustus; that they were then universally 
attributed to those authors, and universally 
admitted to be authentic records of matters of 
fact ; and if the same facts are, with more or 
less explicitness, alluded to by the writers of 
the same, and of the following age, there re- 
mains no possible supposition but that of the 
truth of the story, in its principal circum- 
stances, by which the existence and acceptance 
of these narratives, orations, and allusions, so 
near to the time of the conspiracy, can be ac- 
counted for. 



222 



RELATIVE STRENGTH 



In Sallust's history, some particulars may be 
erroneously stated ; or the principal facts may 
be represented under the colouring of preju- 
dice. In the orations of the consul there may 
be {or we might for argument sake suppose 
there to be) exaggeration, and undue severity 
of censure ; but after such deductions have 
been made, or any others which reason will 
allow, it remains incontestably certain that, if 
these writings be genuine, the story is true. All 
the sophisms of a college of sceptics, in labour- 
ing to show the improbability of the facts, or 
the suspiciousness of the evidence, could make 
no impression upon the mind of any one who 
is convinced that the books are not spu- 
rious. 

Nor is this inference less direct or less valid 
in the case above mentioned, than in any 
similar instance of more recent occurrence. It 
is as inevitable to believe that Catiline con- 
spired against the Roman state, and fell in the 
attempt, as that the descendants of James II. 
excited rebellions in Scotland, or that Murat 
was for a short time king of Naples. In the 
one case, as in the others, unless the docu- 
ments — all of them, have been forged, the facts 
must be true. 

The principle upon which this inference is 
founded, admits of no exception ; nor does the 
history of the world offer an instance that 



OF EVIDENCE. 



seems like an exception. Narratives of al- 
leged, but unreal facts may have been sud- 
denly promulgated, and for a moment credited; 
or false narratives of events concealed by place 
or circumstances from the public eye, may have 
gained temporary credit. Or narratives, true 
in their outline, may have been falsified in all 
those points of which the public could not 
fairly judge ; and thus the false, having been 
slipped in with the true, has passed by over- 
sight upon the general faith. But no such 
suppositions meet the case of various public 
transactions, taking place through some length 
of time, and in different localities, witnessed by 
persons of all classes, interests, and disposi- 
tions, uncontradicted by any parties at the 
time, and particularly recorded, and inciden- 
tally alluded to by several writers whose 
works were widely circulated, generally ac- 
cepted, and unanswered, in the age when 
thousands of persons were competent to judge 
of their truth. 

No one, to recur to the example mentioned 
above, is at liberty merely to say that he with- 
holds his faith from Sallust and from Cicero, 
as he might, on many points, withhold it from 
Herodotus, from Diodorus, or from Plutarch. 
Yet even in this case he ought to show cause 
of doubt, if he would not be charged with the 
frivolous affectation of possessing more saga- 



224 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

city than his neighbours pretend to. But in 
the other, while in professing to doubt the facts, 
he cannot impugn the antiquity of the records, 
he only calls himself a fool by a very needless 
circumlocution. He who does not believe the 
narrative must either give an intelligible ac- 
count of the existence of the writings on the 
supposition that the events never took place ; 
or confess that, to his taste, there is a relish 
in absurdity which greatly excels the plain 
flavour of truth. 

When historical facts which, in their nature, 
are fairly open to direct proof, are called in 
question, there is no species of trifling more 
irksome (to those who have no dishonest ends 
to serve) than the halting upon twenty indirect 
arguments, while the centre 'proof — that which 
clear and upright minds fasten upon intui- 
tively, remains undisposed of. In an investi- 
gation, purely historical, and as simple as any 
which the page of history presents, what boots 
it to say that the books of the New Testament 
contain doctrines which do not accord with our 
notions of " the great system of things ;" that 
they enjoin duties grievous and impracticable ; 
that they favour despotism, or engender 
strifes ; or what avails it to say that all the 
professors of Christianity are hypocrites, and 
that therefore the religion is not true ? Can 
these objections, or any others of a like kind, 



OF EVIDENCE. 225 

weaken that evidence upon which we believe 
that our island was once possessed by the 
Romans ? But they have just and precisely 
as much weight in counterpoising that evidence, 
as in balancing the proof of the facts affirmed 
in the New Testament. If such objections were 
ten-fold more valid than sophistry can make 
them, they would not remove, alter, or impair, 
one single grain of the proper proof belonging 
to the historical proposition under inquiry. 

The question is not whether we admire 
Christianity, or whether we hate it; whether 
we wish to submit our conduct to its precepts, 
and to abide by the hope it offers, or whether 
we are resolved to dare the hazards of its 
being true. The question is not whether, in 
our sage opinion, these books have been a 
blessing to the world, or a curse ; but simply 
this — whether they were extant and well 
known through the Roman empire in the reign 
of Nero. 

There are subterfuges and evasions enough, 
by means of which we may obscure from our 
minds (at least for as long a period as serious 
and continued thought, uninvited, usually en- 
dures) the plain inference which follows from 
an admission of the antiquity and genuineness 
of the Christian Scriptures. Rut contradiction 
may boldly be challenged when it is affirmed 
that, with a competent knowledge of human 



226 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

nature, of ancient history, and of ancient lite- 
rature, no one can admit, and in all its parti- 
culars realize the fact, that the Gospels, the 
Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul, of 
Peter, of John, and of James, were written in 
the age claimed for them, and were imme- 
diately diffused throughout Palestine, Asia 
Minor, Africa, Greece, and Italy, and then re- 
concile himself to any supposition whatever, 
except that the facts affirmed in these hooks 
were true. 



Theologians, after adducing the evidences 
of revealed religion, not unfrequently subjoin 
some sentiment like the following : " Evidence 
of the truth of Christianity, amply sufficient to 
produce conviction in all candid and honest 
minds, is afforded to us ; and with this we 
ought to be content, even though it may fall 
short of that degree of certainty which must 
constrain the assent of every one who hears it. 
For it is the very intention of revelation to 
prove the moral dispositions of men, and to 
exercise faith.'" 



OF EVIDENCE. 22J 

That there is reason in such expressions is 
not denied ; yet very few persons will hear them 
from the advocates of Christianity without im- 
bibing a false notion of the real nature of the 
evidences in question. It is indeed quite true 
that the proofs of the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the Scriptures, though sufficient for the 
satisfaction of candid and sincere inquirers, are 
not such as must force the assent of all persons 
who hear them, whatever may be their stock of 
information, their capacities, their prejudices, 
or their inclinations. But now would it not 
sound somewhat jejune and prudish to make a 
formal concession of this kind in relation to the 
evidence on which we believe the story of the 
Norman Conquest, or the history of the reign 
of Alfred, or any principal fact of Roman or 
Grecian history ? Or what would be thought 
of a paragraph of similar import at the close of 
a treatise on the doctrine of fluxions, advanced 
in reference to the more abstruse and difficult 
demonstrations of the science ? We must think 
such concessions, though indisputable, rather 
misplaced, and likely to produce a false im- 
pression on the minds of uninstructed per- 
sons. 

Yet there is precisely the same ground for 
making the concession in the one case as in 
the other. The evidence attesting the facts of 
the reign of Alfred, though abundantly suf- 



228 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

ficient to convince competent and candid in- 
quirers, and such indeed as can leave no room 
for doubt in the minds of unprejudiced persons, 
is far from being so palpable as at once to 
force the assent of all persons, however pre- 
viously uninformed ; nor is it so simple as to 
leave no room for sophistical objections. 

Nor are the higher doctrines of mathema- 
tical science less the objects of faith to the 
mass of mankind, than the facts of history. 
Indeed the actual proof of their truth is much 
farther removed from the apprehension of all 
but a very few persons, than that of historical 
facts. But these high and incomprehensible 
doctrines are assented to, and their practical 
consequences confidently acted upon in the 
mechanic arts, because they touch none of 
the passions or interests of men ; because it is 
known that the few who are competent to un- 
derstand them are agreed in opinion ; and be- 
cause it is known also that whoever should 
impugn them, must at length be convicted of 
his folly and error. 

But this sort of palpable and inevitable con- 
viction cannot often be brought down upon the 
head of an objector to historical evidence. For 
the proof does not lie upon one line, which 
must be passed over, step for step, by every one 
who traces it ; but is such as admits of a turn 
off at every particular ; so that those who 



OF EVIDENCE. 229 

scruple not to leap a difficulty which they 
cannot fairly surmount, are hardly ever to be 
overtaken in argument, or brought to confes- 
sion of their error. 

Remote historical facts, though incapable of 
that palpable proof which, by keeping sophists 
in awe, preserves the mass of mankind from 
deception, are capable of a kind of proof which 
no one who thoroughly understands it can 
doubt. Just on this ground then stand all the 
main facts of ancient history; they are in- 
evitably admitted as true by all into whose 
minds the whole of the evidence enters ; and 
they are believed or doubted, in every degree 
between blind faith and blind scepticism, by 
those whose apprehension of the facts is de- 
ficient, obscure, or perverted. 

Whenever it is said that the events recorded 
in the four Gospels are presented to us in a 
form purposely adapted to exercise our faith, 
it should always be added, by way of illustrat- 
ing the exact meaning of the words, that the 
events recorded by Thucydides and Tacitus 
are also presented to us in a form adapted to 
exercise our faith. Yet it would evidently be 
more exactly proper to say, that this sort of 
evidence is adapted to give exercise to reason : 
for faith has no part in things which lie within 
the known boundaries of the mundane system. 
And facts, intelligible in themselves, though 



230 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

properly miraculous, are, when duly attested in 
conformity with the ordinary principles of evi- 
dence, as much a part of the mundane system, as 
the most familiar transactions of common life. 
The Scriptures do indeed make a demand 
upon our faith ; but it is exclusively in regard 
to facts which lie above and beyond the world 
with which we are conversant, and of which 
facts we could know nothing by the ordinary 
means of information. But our assent to mi- 
raculous events is demanded purely on the 
ground of common sense. The facts are as 
comprehensible as the most ordinary occur- 
rences ; and the evidence upon which they are 
attested implies nothing beyond the well- 
known principles of human nature. He then 
who does violence to the standing laws of the 
present system by rejecting this evidence, 
displays, not a want of faith, for that is not 
called for, but a want of reason. To one who 
affected to question the received account of the 
death of Julius Csesar, we should not say "you 
want faith," but "you want common sense." 
It is the very nature of a miracle to appeal to 
the evidence of universal experience, in order 
that, afterwards, a demand may be made upon 
faith in relation to extra-mundane facts. 



OF EVIDE.NCE. 



231 



The mass of Christians are not often very 
accurately informed of the real nature of infidel 
objections. Yet a disadvantage results from 
this happy ignorance ; for it may easily be 
imagined, by those who are not conversant 
with their works, that the deistical writers 
whose names are the most frequently men- 
tioned, have laboured, and with some degree 
of success, to controvert the direct historical 
evidence of Christianity. This idea may be 
strengthened by perceiving that the advocates 
of religion, in reply to opponents, chiefly em- 
ploy themselves in bringing forward this his- 
torical evidence. But in fact, and for a very 
good reason, well informed and accomplished 
sceptics have never, in recent times, troubled 
themselves with the direct proof of the religion 
they endeavoured to overthrow ; but have 
taken their station at a distance, labouring to 
establish some abstract doctrine which should 
render the Christian system incredible a priori. 
Or if they have approached nearer, it has been 
only to make a skirmishing attack upon single 
facts, and to cast within the intrenchments of 
religion pestilent insinuations, which must 
communicate contagion, even though instantly 
removed. 

The only writers who have attacked the evi- 
dences of Christianity on the ground of histo- 
rical proof, have been such as were not more 



232 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

regardless of truth, than reckless of character; 
and who, with the means of infinite mischief in 
their hands, have secured themselves against 
refutation by sheer effrontery. To men of this 
class it is as easy to make one assertion as an- 
other; and the readers to whom they address 
themselves are, in general, as little able to 
detect the most flagrant untruth, as the most 
recondite mis-statement ; and are accustomed 
to admit, with equal faith, the prognostica- 
tions of an almanack, the calumnies of a Sun- 
day paper, and the lies of an infidel pamphlet. 

What may be the best means for preventing 
or remedying the mischiefs produced among 
the lower orders by profligate impugners of 
religious principles it is not our part to in- 
quire ; but the nature of the evidence in ques- 
tion, and the thickened ignorance of those 
who are the victims of such seductions, would 
seem to suggest that, though corrected state- 
ments of misrepresented facts may sometimes 
be circulated with good effect, the only course 
which Christian teachers can follow with a 
confident hope of success is that of a bold and 
affectionate appeal to the conscience, and an 
urgent use of those arguments to which the 
heart responds. 

But infidelity, secret or avowed, exists also 
in classes of the community whose error is 
not excused by their ignorance ; and this 



OF EVIDENCE. 233 

known, or supposed existence of infidelity 
among well informed men, is the occasion of 
uneasiness, and often the only ground of douht, 
to many sincere persons who are fain to sup- 
pose that there must be some uncertainty in 
that evidence which persons more learned than 
themselves reject. Those who are perplexed by 
a difficulty of this sort might do well to remem- 
ber that knowledge and intelligence are in- 
struments productive of their proper effects 
only when fairly used. So far as they do not 
think, the best instructed are on a level with 
the most ignorant. There is no absurdity so 
palpable that it may not be current among 
the upper and educated classes, if interest or 
accident favours its adoption or support. Every 
page of history might furnish some proof of 
this assertion ; and in every private circle 
may be heard the most flimsy^paradoxes af- 
firmed and defended by men whose knowledge, 
in their own line, is exact and comprehensive, 
and whose powers of reasoning, in their wonted 
track, are almost infallible. That well in- 
formed Englishmen, if such there are, should 
reject the evidences of Christianity, may seem 
surprising ; but it is not more so than that 
well informed Englishmen, and many such 
there are, should still adhere to the errors of 
popery. 

In the mass of mankind, educated or un- 



234 



RELATIVE STRENGTH 



educated, the connection between reason and 
opinion, on questions in which common inter- 
ests and passions do not favour impartial in- 
quiry, or in which they are opposed to truth, 
is slight as the slenderest film. The opinions 
of men reasoning without motive, or reasoning 
against inclination, acquire no weight or value 
by accumulation ; the opinion of one is worth 
as much as the opinion of a million ; and the 
bulk of votes swags, now to this side, now to 
that, as often as the vessel of the state tacks 
to the wind. 

How much faith, or how much infidelity 
there may be in a community at any time is 
therefore a question perfectly impertinent to 
an historical argument, however interesting 
the inquiry may be on other accounts. The 
relative amount of belief and scepticism are 
varying perpetually in every country in which 
a free literature and much intellectual activity 
exists. In our own, great changes in this 
respect have taken place within the last thirty 
years : during that time faith and infidelity 
have, to a great extent, changed places in so- 
ciety. The English infidels with a few excep- 
tions are not now, as formerly, the readers of 
Hume, and Gibbon, and Raynal ; for those 
writers have lost almost all influence over 
men of education ; but they are the readers of 
six-penny tracts, the squalid occupants of 



OF EVIDENCE. 235 

hovels, whose profligacy and misery impel 
them to seek the dark consolation of believing 
that a few more years of suffering will launch 
them into an ocean of eternal forgetfulness. 

In the middle classes also, among the pert, 
half thinking, half instructed young men of 
large towns, a sort of infidelity is not unfre- 
quent, which, after deducting something for 
the influence of worse motives, is attribut- 
able to affectation more than to any other 
cause. It is a mere impertinence, and perhaps 
should hardly ever be met with serious argu- 
ment ; but rather discountenanced, as an indi- 
cation of want of sense, or of profligacy of 
manners, or of perverted political principles ; 
and most often of the three together. 

There is reason to doubt if it be ever wise 
to treat flippant scepticism as we should deal 
with honest ignorance : but if argument and 
nothing less will content the sagacious doubter, 
it is plainly the part of the advocate of truth 
to insist upon removing the discussion from 
the confined ground of the evidences of Chris- 
tianity, and to discuss the question on the 
open field of historical inquiry. Any other 
historical books rather than those of the New 
Testament should be selected as the subject 
of disputation ; and when a conclusion is 
arrived at, the entire process of the argu- 
ment should be transferred, piece by piece, 



236 RELATIVE STRENGTH 

to the Gospels. As an historical question, 
Christianity is distinguished from others of a 
like nature by nothing, unless it be the multi- 
plicity and the force of the evidence it pre- 
sents. To ask therefore for proof of the facts 
recorded in the Gospels, and to leave the 
events of the same times unquestioned and 
unexamined, is an impertinence which the ad- 
vocates of Christianity should never submit 
to — much less encourage, by a tacit acknow- 
ledgement that the evidence in the one case 
needs some sort of candour, or of easiness, or 
of willingness to be persuaded, which is not 
asked by the other. The Gospels demand a 
verdict according to the evidence, in a firmer 
tone than any other ancient histories that can 
be put to the bar of common sense. From 
those who are convinced of its truth, Chris- 
tianity does indeed ask the surrender of assent 
to whatever it reveals of the mysteries of the 
unseen world ; but to its impugners it speaks 
only of things obvious and palpable as the 
objects and occupations of common life ; and 
in relation to matters so simple, it demands 
what cannot be withheld — the same assent 
which we yield to the same proof in all other 
cases. 

In conducting an argument on the plan here 
recommended, all parties must clearly under- 
stand the obvious principle already adverted 



OP EVIDENCE. 



237 



to, and so often forgotten, namely, that the 
facts which belong to an historical investiga- 
tion can in no way be affected, for the better 
or the worse, by the nature or consequences 
of the facts contained in the document. Whe- 
ther the books attributed to Matthew, Luke, 
and Paul, contain an account of a revolt in a 
Roman province, or of an expedition against 
a Scythian nation, or of the rise of a philosophi- 
cal sect, or of the life, teaching, and death of 
Jesus, and of the spread of his doctrine, is a 
matter of perfect indifference to the argument 
in which we are engaged. The substitution of 
one of these suppositions for another, would 
not alter the colour, style, or material of an 
ancient manuscript, or annihilate an ancient 
translation, or blot out paragraphs from Taci- 
tus and Pliny, or justify the taking up an ex- 
ception against the universal course of human 
affairs, and the universal principles of human 
nature. 

If evidence differing not at all from that 
which is accepted in similar cases, and which 
in amount and validity would be thought ten 
times more than enough if the books in ques- 
tion related to merely political events, is not 
to be admitted ; if a verdict is to be returned 
openly affronting every principle by which the 
course of human affairs is regulated, and the 
judgments of men directed, the true occasion 



238 RELATIVE STRENGTH OF EVIDENCE. 

of so great a violence should be placed in the 
light. And no other account of the strange 
anomaly can be given than this, namely, that 
the supposition of the resurrection of the dead, 
which is the centre fact affirmed in these 
books, and which must bear all the burden of 
the argument, offers a greater outrage to 
reason than the rejection of the clearest and 
fullest evidence that history has ever accu- 
mulated. 

Unless then it be thought by us " a thing 
incredible that God should raise the dead," 
there remains not even a pretext for question- 
ing the authenticity of the Gospels and Epistles 
— the proof of which, in every separate part of 
it, far excels that of the best authenticated 
historical record of antiquity. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



I. 



SPECIMENS OF VARIOUS READINGS. 

The following specimens of those verbal differences 
that usually arise from the collation of several manuscripts 
of an ancient author, are taken from works that have 
suffered in various degrees^ during their passage to modern 
times, from the inadvertencies, ignorance, or presumption 
of copyists. An important circumstance connected with 
the subject of various readings must not be forgotten, 
namely, that their paucity in any author is no proof of 
the purity of the text ; for it probably arises, not from an 
unusual agreement of MSS. but from the scarcity of 
copies. On the other hand, an unusual number of small 
variations, so far from proving a great amount of corrup- 
tion, most often arises from the number of existing 
MSS. and from the wide circulation of the work in an 
early age. In such cases therefore we possess both the 
most ample means for restoring the text to its pristine 
state, and the best security against wilful or extensive 
corruption. Several of the less noted of the Latin authors 
of which only two or three copies have hitherto been dis- 
covered, present manifest corruptions which there are no 

R 



242 APPENDIX. 

means of correcting, except by conjectural emendations, 
which ought seldom to be admitted. On the other hand 
the text of the more celebrated authors, and of the Greek 
classics generally, is often accompanied with a startling 
list of discordant readings. But the choice they afford, 
and the light they throw upon the causes of variations, 
commonly leave the critic in little doubt as to the selec- 
tion to be made. Modern critics, especially, availing them- 
selves of the labours of their predecessors, and furnished 
with more ample means of comparison, and bringing also 
to the subject a more exact knowledge of the languages, 
and perhaps more good sense than the early editors pos- 
sessed, have succeeded in restoring the text of most of 
the classic authors to a state incomparably more satisfac- 
tory than that in which they first issued from the press. 

In a great number of instances the difference between 
one reading and another, is of a kind that cannot be made 
apparent, or not to any good purpose, in a translation ; 
these being omitted, those which contain any difference 
of sense, or ostensible difference of construction, are given 
in the order in which they arise. 



VARIOUS READINGS FROM HERODOTUS. 

Book III. 
Cap. or, 



1. upon the advice 

4. Cambyses preparing an 

expedition 

5. which belongs to the Syri- 

ans 
from hence is Egypt 



upon taking counsel of 
preparing an expedition, 

Cambyses 
the land belongs to the Syrians 

from this, indeed, is Egypt 



APPENDIX. 



243 



8. Orotal 

13. other such like things 

14. they were there 
— and their necks 
16. otherwise 

25. his troops to remain 
28. bears a white spot 
31. administer justice to the 
Persians 



Ourotal 

such like things 

they passed by 

but their necks 

but otherwise 

his troops to remain there 

a white spot 

administer justice to them 



VARIOUS READINGS FROM THEOPHRASTUS. 

The characters of Theophrastus have suffered more 
than almost any of the Greek classics from the ignorance, 
carelessness, or presumption of copyists. Many passages 
have been so much corrupted or mutilated that they are 
pronounced c past remedy' by the critics. The following 
specimens therefore may be considered as extreme in- 
stances of various readings : they are taken without selec- 
tion, as they occur, omitting those only which are not easily 
made apparent in a translation. Some of them, it should 
be said, are conjectural emendations. 



Chap. VIII. 



encountering a friend 
changing his manner 
and what say you ? 
have you any news ? 
is there no later news ? 



meeting a friend 
altering his looks 
and do you say any thing ? 
how do you have it ? 
and is any later news 
mentioned ? 



244 



APPENDIX. 



truly the news is good 
no one can except against 
the report gathers strength 
there was a great mess 
who knew the whole 
and saying these things 
what at any time 
what portico is there not 



is it not good news ? 
no one can forget 
the report spreads 
there was a great slaughter 
who had seen the thing 
and saying all these things 
what indeed at any time 
what portico is there 



VARIOUS READINGS FROM FLORUS. 



Preface, about two hundred 
and fifty years 
two hundred and fifty 
years 
Book I. seven 

with blood and prey 
hence the temple, and 

Jupiter Stator 
for the sudden occa- 
sions of war 
the fates of the people 

were submitted 
grandson of Pompilius 

divided into wards 
the man from whom 

you have escaped 
with weapons so great 



four hundred years 

one hundred and fifty years 

fourteen 

to blood and prey 

to him be a temple, said he 

for sudden wars 

the fates of the people were 
committed 

son of the daughter of Pom- 
pilius 

divided into wards of ten 

whom hardly you have escaped 

and with such weapons 



APPENDIX. 



245 



VARIOUS READINGS FROM JUSTIN. 



Preface, which I have sent to 

you 
Book I. Sesostris 
Arbactus 

among the shepherds 
was called Cyrus, 
conquered, and fear- 
ing for himself 
led him through 
Book V. already Mindarus 
Book X. he wished not to be 
king with his friends 
Book XI. the Athenians and 
Lacedemonians 
that the bridge 
might be stopped 



which to you Antoninus, empe- 
ror, I have sent 

Vexoris 

Arbaces 

being imperious, was called 
Cyrus 

conquered and forsaken 

led him on 

already Mindarus at Sestus 

he wished to be king with his 

friends 
the Athenians and Thebans 

that the bridge might be 
broken up 



If from the entire number of various readings in any 
author of whom eight or ten ancient copies have been 
examined, we subtract those which are purely grammatical 
— those in which a manifest error may readily be corrected 
— those which arise merely from a different division of 
letters or words — those which consist only in transposi- 
tions of words — and those which, though real differences, 
are so slight as to be hardly apparent in the closest trans- 
lation ; the remaining number of such as are important to 
the sense, would perhaps scarcely amount to one in fifty. 



246 



APPENDIX. 



These important variations bear a much smaller propor- 
tion to the unimportant in those authors of whom a large 
number of independent MSS. has been preserved. Out 
of a hundred thousand various readings in the text of the 
New Testament, it would be hard to select one hundred 
which an English reader would think important to the 
sense of the passages where they occur. And in that 
hundred there would be not more than one or two which 
can in any way affect questions of fact, of doctrine, or of 
practice. 



II. 



RESTORERS OF LEARNING IN THE FOURTEENTH AND 
FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 

The history of the revival of learning in the fifteenth 
century, does not belong to the design of this volume ; yet 
a brief notice of those men of learning who most distin- 
guished themselves in the laborious work of bringing the 
remains of ancient literature from their obscurity, and of 
presenting them to the world through the medium of the 
press, may seem proper as a supplement to the account 
already given of the transmission of books to modern 
times. 

One of the first of those learned Greeks who brought the 
knowledge of the Greek language and literature into Italy, 
was Emanuel Chrysoloras, born of a noble family at Con- 
stantinople, about 1335. He was sent ambassador by the 
emperor John Palseologus, to solicit aid against the Turks 
from the European states : on this errand he visited England 
during the reign of Richard II. Soon after his return 
from this embassy, he again left Constantinople; and 
about 1391, came into Italy and taught the Greek lan- 
guage successively at Florence, Milan, Pavia, Venice, 
and Rome. While at Rome he was engaged in the 
service of Pope Martin V. and sent by him into Germany 
to fix the place for a general council, when the city of 



248 APPENDIX, 

Constance was agreed upon. Chrysoloras died a few days 
before the opening of that celebrated council, April 15, 
1415. 

Poggio, an Italian of good family, born 1380, at Terra- 
nuova, a small town in the Florentine territory, received 
his education at Florence under the instruction of John of 
Ravenna, and of Chrysoloras. To a thorough knowledge 
of the Latin and Greek languages, he added some ac- 
quaintance with the Hebrew, and devoted the whole 
energy of his mind to literature. Under the pontificate 
of Boniface IX. he obtained the office of secretary to the 
pope, which he retained under seven successive pontiffs, 
during a period of forty years. While the council of Con- 
stance was sitting, Poggio, as mentioned above, was com- 
missioned by some cardinals and nobles to proceed thither 
for the discovery of ancient manuscripts. His researches 
in that city and its vicinity were rewarded by finding in 
the monastery of St. Gal, a copy of Quintilian, and of 
Silius Itali cuius. On the same errand, and with frequent 
success, he travelled through Germany, and visited 
England, where he staid some time, exploring many of the 
monastic libraries. 

On his return to Italy, he married in open violation of 
the customs of the clergy ; he nevertheless retained his 
office till his seventy- second year, when he accepted tha^ 
of secretary to the republic of Florence. In the retirement 
of a country house near the city, he applied himself with 
renewed ardour to literary pursuits, and composed the 
greater part of his works. He edited, or prepared, the 
copy for editions of the two authors already mentioned, of 
several of Cicero's Orations, of Marcellinus, Lucretius, 
Tertullian, Valerius Flaccus, Probus, and of some other 
authors of less note. He also published Latin translations 
of Diodorus Siculus, and of Xenophon's Cyropeedia. 



APPENDIX. 249 

Poggio wrote also a history of Florence, from 1350 to 1455. 
His humour was satirical, and he engaged in several angry 
controversies with the literary men of his times, especially 
with Trapezuntius and Laurentius Valla. 

Theodore Gaza, a native of Thessalonica, came into Italy 
with other Greeks in 1430, when his country was invaded 
by the Turks. Having presently made himself master of 
Latin, he was engaged by Nicholas V. to translate several 
Greek authors into that language. On the death of 
Nicholas he went to Naples, where he was well received by 
King Alphonsus ; but he dying soon after, Gaza returned 
to Rome, and availed himself of the friendship of his first 
patron, Cardinal Bessarion, a munificent encourager of 
learning, who bestowed upon him a benefice. Gaza, how- 
ever, absorbed in his studies, so neglected his affairs as to 
be always poor ; and, moreover, always at variance with 
his coadjutors in literary labour. He died at Rome, 1478. 
Besides his translations of Greek authors into Latin, he 
published some versions of the Latin classics in his native 
Greek. 

Demetrius Chalcondyles, a native of Athens, and a dis- 
ciple of Gaza, was invited by Laurence de Medicis to 
Florence, where he taught Greek. After the death of his 
patron, he accepted, from Lewis Sfortia, the offer of a pro- 
fessorship at Milan ; but ended his days at Rome, where 
he had been employed by Nicholas V. in translating the 
Greek authors. 

John Argyropylus left Constantinople in 1453, when 
taken by the Turks. He was made professor of Greek at 
Florence by Cosmo de Medicis, and appointed also tutor 
to his son Peter, and his grandson Laurence. Driven from 
Florence by the plague, he established himself at Rome as 
a lecturer upon the Greek language and philosophy. Like 



250 APPENDIX. 

Gaza, he employed himself chiefly in translating the 
Greek classics into Latin. 

George Trapezuntius, a native of Crete, first settled at 
Venice, and afterwards came to Rome, where he long 
taught rhetoric and philosophy; translated the Greek 
authors, railed at the ingratitude of his Italian patrons, 
and quarrelled with his emigrant countrymen. 

Francis Philelphus, of Ancona, received a Greek educa- 
tion from Chrysoloras ; and taught the language in several 
of the Italian capitals. He was a most industrious stu- 
dent, a perfect master of the two languages, a poet, and 
translator of Xenophon, Plutarch, and Hippocrates. 

Lauren tius Valla, born at Rome, 1415, of a patrician 
family, distinguished himself by his zeal and ability in 
restoring the purity of Latin composition. In general 
learning and critical ability, Valla ranked high among his 
contemporaries. But his knowledge of Greek appears, 
from his translations of Herodotus, Thucydides, and 
Homer, to have been far from exact. Like most of the 
learned of that age, he lived on terms of rancorous animo- 
sity with his rivals, especially Poggio. 

Angelo Politian, born at Monte Pulciano, in Tuscany, 
1454, professed the Greek and Latin languages at Florence 
under the Medicis, to whose interests he was ardently de- 
voted. He possessed more taste, vivacity, and genius, 
than most of his literary competitors ; and had not his 
career been early terminated, would probably have effected 
more than any of them for the revival of learning, and the 
restoration of the ancient authors. In his translation of 
Herodian he was reckoned to have surpassed his author. 

Hermolaus Barbarus, born at Venice 1454, was engaged 
in the earlier part of his life in public employments and 
embassies ; but in his latter years made many translations. 



APPENDIX. 251 

edited a number of authors, and composed commentaries 
upon some. The works on which his critical labours were 
chiefly spent were those of Aristotle, Plutarch, Diosco- 
rides, Pliny, and Pomponius Mela. He died at Rome, 
1493. 

Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the lately in- 
vented art of printing had been brought to a high degree 
of perfection, and the principal cities of Europe were emu- 
lating each other in the splendour and extent of their 
literary undertakings. Editions of the classic authors, of 
the fathers, and of the Holy Scriptures, issued, in quick 
succession, from the presses of Rome, Naples, Milan, 
Venice, Mantua, Mentz, Strasburgh, Paris, Basle, and 
London. Among those who devoted themselves to these 
labours, none were more distinguished than the three 
Venetian printers, Aldus Manutius the elder, Paul Manu- 
tius, his son, and Aldus Manutius, the son of Paul. Aldus 
the elder was born at Bassano, 1447; and about 1488 
established himself as a printer at Venice. Several at- 
tempts at printing Greek had before this time been made, 
but with so little success, that Greek quotations in Latin 
authors were not unfrequently inserted in printed books 
with the pen. Aldus, applied himself with great zeal and 
ability to this object, and very soon issued editions of the 
Greek classics, which surpassed what had hitherto ap- 
peared. 

Paul Manutius surpassed his father in learning and 
taste ; and was succeeded by a son who maintained the 
reputation of the establishment. The reader who wishes 
to collect information relative to the state of literature, 
ancient and recent, in the sixteenth century, can hardly do 
better than consult the accounts (of which several have been 
published) of the Aldine editions. Of these accounts the 
most complete is that of Renouard, entitled, " Annales-de 



252 APPENDIX. 

L'Imprimerie des Aide, ou Histoire des trois Manuce et 
de leurs Editions." 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1803. 

The catalogues of the works printed during eighty or 
ninety years at the Aldine press, not only serve to show 
what ancient authors were discovered at that period, but 
afford a good criterion of the taste and spirit of the age, 
proving which were most in request ; for the number of 
editions of each author is pretty accurately ascertained. 
Several of the classics passed through fifteen or twenty 
editions in the course of a few years. A large proportion 
of the Aldine publications consisted of collections from va- 
rious authors ; sometimes ancients and moderns, sacred 
writers and profane, were associated in the same volume. 
This practice was but an imitation of that usually adopted 
by the ancient copyists, who more often transcribed collec- 
tions than single works. 

Almost every year of the sixteenth century was marked 
by the publication of splendid and corrected editions of 
the classics ; and critics, aided by the continued discovery 
of manuscripts, and by the advancement of learning, re- 
moved some of the obscurity, and supplied some of the 
defects that had unavoidably attended the first publication 
of authors from perhaps a single, or from inferior manu- 
scripts. 

Among those who distinguished themselves in these 
labours, the most noted were Joachim Camerarius, Henry 
and Robert Stephens, Turnebus, Scaliger, Budaeus, 
Vives, and Casaubon. But though these critics brought 
vast learning and great talents to the work of illustrating 
the classic authors, the true principles of criticism were 
either ill understood by them, or little respected. The 
editions issued under the sanction of their names, some- 
times contained the unaltered text of former impressions ; 
and often conjectural emendations supplied the place of a 



APPENDIX. 253 

laborious collation of manuscripts ; while glaring solecisms 
of construction, which might with perfect safety have been 
corrected, remained unremedied. In the next age the 
work of emendation went on ; but often influenced rather 
by a superstitious than an intelligent respect for the ex- 
isting condition of the text of ancient authors. 

But in recent times, the possession of more ample means, 
with more industry, more intelligence, and a more exact 
knowledge of the languages, have given to modern edi- 
tions of the classics, especially to those issued in Germany 
and Holland, a degree of consistency which both facilitates 
the progress of the student, and enhances his pleasure in 
the perusal of these remains of antiquity. 

The text of the Holy Scriptures has fully partaken of 
the benefits arising from an improved state of the art of 
verbal criticism. Indeed, so abundant are the materials 
of Scripture criticism, and so great the amount of learning, 
talent, and assiduity, that have been, during the last fifty 
years especially, concentrated upon this object, that the 
text of the Hebrew and Gi-eek Scriptures may be affirmed 
to stand at present on the very highest ground of certainty 
and purity. 



III. 



THE JESUIT HARDOUIN. 



Two or three lovers of paradox have, at different times, 
attempted to bring under suspicion the entire body of an- 
cient literature, or a large portion of it. Among these no 
one has attracted more attention than John Hardouin, a 
French Jesuit, born in Bretagne, 1647. He early distin- 
guished himself both by bis extensive acquirements in 
every department of learning, and by the singularity of his 
opinions. In 1684 he published a work on ancient coins, 
in which he advanced many whimsical positions, plainly 
at variance with unquestionable facts, and yet recom- 
mended by considerable ingenuity, and by much learning. 
Stimulated by the notice which this and some other pub- 
lications had excited, he more fully developed his system, 
the substance of which was, that, excepting the works of 
Cicero, Pliny's Natural History, Virgil's Georgics, and the 
Satires and Epistles of Horace, all the supposed remains 
of the Greek and Roman authors were manufactured by 
some Italian monks of the thirteenth century. This sweep- 
ing scepticism he endeavoured to support chiefly from the 
evidence of ancient coins, which, as he pretended, esta- 
blished facts and dates incompatible with the assertions of 
the works in question. 

Hardouin was replied to and refuted by Le Clerc, La 
Croze, and others : he nevertheless adhered firmly to his 
opinions to the last ; although he was constrained by his 
superiors of the society, who seemed to have been alarmed 



APPENDIX. 



255 



for the credit of their community, to publish a recanta- 
tion of his doctrines. This recantation was to the following 
effect. " I subscribe sincerely to every thing contained in the 
preceding declaration ; (drawn up by the Jesuits.) I heartily 
condemn in my writings what it condemns in them ; and 
particularly what I have said concerning an impious faction 
which had forged, some ages ago, the greatest part of the 
ecclesiastical or profane writings, which have hitherto 
been considered as ancient. I am extremely sorry that 
I did not before open my eyes in this point. I think 
myself greatly obliged to my superiors in the society who 
have assisted me in divesting myself of my prejudices. I 
promise never to advance in word or writing any thing, 
directly or indirectly, contrary to my present recantation. 
And if hereafter I shall call in question the antiquity of 
any writing, either ecclesiastical or profane, which no 
person before shall have charged as supposititious, I will 
only do it by proposing my reasons in a writing published 
under my name, with the permission of my superiors, and 
the approbation of the public censors. In testimony of 
which I have signed, this 27th of Dec. 1708, J. Hardouin, 
of the society of Jesus." 

Notwithstanding this profession, the learned Jesuit con- 
tinued, in his subsequent writings, to advocate his first 
opinions : he died at Paris, September 3, 1729. After 
his death some of his smaller writings were published, of 
which the most singular was entitled " The Atheists 
unmasked ;" the design of which was to accuse the most 
distinguished opponents of the Jesuits of a conspiracy 
against religion : in the list of these Atheists are found 
the names of Jansen, Malbranche, Thomasin, Descartes, 
Regis, Arnaud, Nicole, Pascal, and Quesnel. It has been 
supposed, but perhaps on insufficient grounds, that Har- 
douin acted from the first at "the instigation of his supe- 



256 



APPENDIX. 



riors, who may be imagined to have wished, if possible, 
to throw mankind more completely into the arms 
of the church by removing all other authorities, and 
by destroying the credit of those ancient works which 
either plainly contradict the dogmas of the Romish church, 
or which cherish a spirit hostile to its pretensions. If 
such a design were formed, it was presently found so im- 
practicable to effect it, that the Jesuits abandoned their 
tool to the contempt he had nearly drawn upon the body. 
The scheme devised by this learned father, if absurd, 
was at least consistent with itself. He began by impeach- 
ing those remains of ancient literature, the genuineness of 
which rests upon the slenderest proof : if he had succeeded 
in destroying the credit of the Greek and Roman classics, 
and of the early Christian writers, there is reason to sup- 
pose that he, or some one labouring in the same cause, 
would have attacked the authority of the Scriptures ; 
and if that attempt had prospered, the victims of religious 
despotism would have had no appeal left to them. If the 
records of antiquity could be robbed of their authority, in- 
telligence, liberty, and religion, must presently disappear. 



NOTE to pp. 10, 11. 

The classic authors though brought from their obscurity in 
the early part of the fifteenth century, did .not issue from the 
press till the close of it ; and many of them not till the early 
part of the sixteenth century. The printed editions mentioned 
in page 11, though dated in the sixteenth, leave no room to ques- 
tion the antecedent existence of the works, which were then spoken 
of as being already known to the learned. 



ERRATA. 

For Chartas, pp. 52, 55, read Charters. 
For Cataline, p. 117, read Catiline. 



